Nintendo Debunks Rumor About Switch 2 Japan Retail Margins

Nintendo has made a surprising statement today.

On Twitter, the Nintendo Co. Ltd. account shared one of its rare English language statements. They said this:

On June 2, 2025 (JST), a news report related to the wholesale price of Nintendo Switch 2 in the Japanese market was published. We want to clarify that this report is not true. Nintendo does not disclose any information regarding business conditions with distribution and retail partners.

OatmealDome shared extra context:

Nintendo says that a recent Bloomberg report about them incentivizing Japanese retailers to sell the Switch 2 with a higher gross margin is inaccurate. Bloomberg claimed that Nintendo is offering a 5% margin vs. the standard 2%.

Two weeks ago, Bloomberg also reported on a rumor that Samsung, who is making the 8nm SOC for the Switch 2 in their foundries, is urging Nintendo to make an upgraded Switch 2 a few years down the line. Nintendo denied that they had plans to make something like a Switch 2 Pro, but they didn’t go out of their way to make a statement this urgently. They didn’t make a response like this on their Twitter, which would get immediate visibility, and it also only took a matter of hours for this response.

This may not seem like a big deal for most American gamers, but we think it’s an indication of how seriously Nintendo treats the Japanese video game market. If this claim wasn’t true, it is potentially damaging as Japanese Nintendo fans would be justifiably upset by this. Nintendo offers two versions of the Switch 2 that isn’t available anywhere else in the world.

There is a Japanese only version of the Switch 2, that’s a little cheaper, and has less features than what the rest of the world gets. This version only uses Japanese language in the entire system, and will only allow you to use Japanese region accounts. This version is ¥49,980, with a Mario Kart World SKU priced at ¥53,980.

The multi-language version of the Switch 2, which is the same version sold in the rest of the world, is priced at ¥69,980. The Mario Kart World SKU of this version is ¥73,980. Based on the purchasing power of the Japanese consumer, this translates to the Japan-only Switch 2 saving them what they experience as $ 100 in equivalent value.

And knowing that this could be a scandal in Japan, it could become an even more complicated issue if word spread and potentially even get mistranslated to the rest of the world.

For those who were curious, you can read the debunked Bloomberg report here. If anything, this is a good reminder not to trust just every rumor that’s spreading around now that we’re days away from the launch of the Switch 2.