Nintendo has announced that the price of the base model of Nintendo Switch will be sold for a reduced price in Europe. There’s no word yet on whether that price change will ever come to other countries, but the new price for Europe and the UK appears to have gone down by at least a small amount. This change appears to have been prompted by the release of the upcoming OLED model, which will offer an upgrade to the original console.
Retail sites now list the price for the base model Nintendo Switch as €269.99 and £259.99 for European and UK gamers, respectively. This is a reduction of €60 and £20, which might not seem like much, but considering the OLED model will go for about €349.99 and £309.99, it might be enough to attract otherwise console-averse buyers. The Switch Lite, meanwhile, still has the lowest price of any Switch model.
According to a statement given to VGC, the company felt that the timing was right for the price drop, which is a little strange to hear coming from the company that never drops prices for things ever: “More than four and a half years after its first release, Nintendo Switch continues to have strong sales momentum in Europe. After carefully weighing up a variety of factors, including currency exchange rates in Europe and the upcoming launch of Nintendo Switch – OLED Model, we decided that now was the appropriate time to change the European trade price of Nintendo Switch.”
Nintendo has said that the OLED model is primarily a screen upgrade on the original screen, with a bigger and more beautiful screen on the handheld part of the console. The new console will also have more internal storage than the original. Other than that, it’s not quite the upgrade fans had been thinking it would be, with pre-announcement leaks having fueled enthusiasm for a Switch Pro that we now know probably doesn’t yet exist.
