Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has stated that the company has no plans to raise or lower prices for either the Nintendo Switch hardware or its games.
In the Q&A to their latest financial meeting for the end of the latest financial year (ending March 2023), Furukawa explained that the situation does not warrant any changes for either hardware or software at this time.
Furukawa was asked about the costs of some materials in making the Switch having dropped in price. This is what he had to say about it:
“With regard to hardware, prices for certain materials have fallen but overall costs remain high. We must also continue to account for the impact of factors such as inflation and foreign exchange rates.
Production was highly impacted during the previous fiscal year (ended March 31, 2023), so we are ensuring our parts procurement occurs far enough in advance to ensure stable production.
Even if raw material prices decrease, it will take time for this to be reflected in manufacturing costs. Currently, there are no plans to reduce the price of our hardware during this fiscal year.
On the other hand, while we also have no plans to raise prices, the yen continues to be weak, and procurement costs remain high, so we will continue to monitor the situation carefully.”
To sum, Furukawa clarified that making Switch units did not instantly become cheaper because of the drop in prices of its materials. The situation can change based on other factors, such as the yen to dollar exchange rate, but a price decrease, or for that matter, a price increase, is not in the cards at this time.
In regards to software, Furukawa was asked about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s price being $ 70. He was asked if this reflected the higher cost of making games in general. This is what he had to say:
“Regarding the price of software, the MSRP (manufacturerʼs suggested retail price) of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is ten dollars higher in the U.S. than its predecessor, but this does not indicate a general increase in the price of our software.
Our approach is to determine the appropriate price of a product on a case-by-case basis.
It is true that development costs are on the rise due to the enhanced breadth of content and the requirement of more advanced technology to support online play, so the pricing for our new titles going forward is something that we will continue to consider thoroughly.”
Furukawa acknowledges that the costs of making games have gone up, and explained that those costs come from adding online play, as well as the expectations for making bigger scale AAA games. Nintendo still prices games on a case by case basis for now.
There doesn’t seem to be any objections about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom being worth $ 70. The game’s release has seen unprecedented critical acclaim. As we had reported it, its review scores are near perfect.
