Nintendo Raised Switch 2 Prices — And Sales Fell 41%

Nintendo raised the price of its Switch 2 console — and buyers walked away. Sales of the flagship console fell 41% in the July-to-September quarter, Nintendo's results showed on Thursday, even as the company's profits climbed.

The numbers tell a story that will be watched far beyond gaming: when a beloved product gets more expensive in the middle of a memory-chip shortage, even loyal customers pause.

What the results show

Nintendo sold 2.67 million Switch 2 units in the three months ended 30 September, down 41% from the same period a year earlier and below the 3.82 million sold in the previous quarter, CNBC reported. For the six months through September, Switch 2 hardware sales reached 6.49 million units, 37.4% lower than a year earlier, while sales of the original Switch dropped 32.7% to 1.27 million units.

The decline followed price increases for the Switch 2 in the United States, Canada and Japan during the quarter, after an earlier increase in Japan. Memory, a core component of the console, faces a supply shortage and surging demand, which is driving an unprecedented rise in chip prices. Data centres soaking up chip supply have pushed memory costs up across the electronics industry, squeezing console makers' margins.

Profits rose anyway

The hardware slump did not translate into a profit drop. For the six months through September, Nintendo's revenue was 966.0 billion yen, down 12.1%, while operating profit rose 49.1% to 216.5 billion yen and net profit climbed 11% to 220.9 billion yen. The company credited steady software sales — Switch 2 game sales rose 18.8% to 24.49 million units over the six months — along with a first-quarter refund of US tariffs that had previously been booked as costs.

For the quarter itself, revenue was 448.2 billion yen (about $2.8 billion), missing analyst expectations of 481.37 billion yen, and net profit was 73.5 billion yen versus 82.16 billion yen expected.

What Nintendo is betting on next

Nintendo kept its full-year forecasts unchanged, including its goal of selling 16.5 million Switch 2 consoles in the year ending March 2027 — a target that already includes about $633 million in expected costs from rising component prices, particularly memory, and tariff measures. Cumulative Switch 2 sales now stand at 26.35 million units worldwide as of 30 September.

Buyers are hoping that "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", a remake of one of Nintendo's most iconic games, might lift sales, with new Pokémon games also slated for 2027. But as one analyst warned, the remake is the company's only major hit this fiscal year.

The lesson of this quarter is a simple one about price elasticity: raising prices to protect margins works on paper right up until a 41% volume drop shows where buyers actually draw the line.

Sources: JBizNews (CNBC), Daily Imroz (Anadolu Agency). Internal: Wall Street Soared After the Midterms — While Data Centre Stocks Crashed.