Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa says there are nonetheless no plans to extend the value of Change 2 as a result of rising value of reminiscence, a minimum of at the moment.
The quickly rising value of RAM – primarily attributed to AI information centres shopping for up big portions of it, making provides scarce – has grow to be a problem in quite a few markets, with some warning that it’s going to have a knock-on impact on the price of any units that make use of it.
Furukawa has spoken in regards to the scenario earlier than and was requested for an replace on his ideas throughout a Q&A session following the corporate’s newest monetary name.
One shareholder requested Furukawa whether or not there was a chance of Nintendo revising the value of Change 2 {hardware} if the value of parts continues to extend.
Furukawa replied that whereas Nintendo doesn’t talk about particular parts intimately, it was having discussions with its suppliers to make sure a secure provide in the long run.
Because of this, Furukawa says the latest surge in reminiscence costs didn’t considerably affect on its {hardware} profitability through the third quarter of its monetary 12 months (October to December 2025), and he doesn’t count on a big affect within the fourth quarter both.
He famous, nevertheless, that ought to the surge in costs proceed into the subsequent monetary 12 months and past, this might ultimately have an effect on profitability, and that ought to the scenario deteriorate considerably, the corporate will assess the market and take acceptable measures.
Furukawa pressured that no selections have at present been made to alter the value of Change 2, and identified that one thing as essential as a value improve must take greater than only one issue into consideration earlier than it’s determined upon.
“Worth modifications will probably be decided comprehensively, considering not solely profitability but additionally the adoption of the platform, gross sales traits and market circumstances,” he mentioned (through machine translation).
Responding to a separate query on an identical matter, Furukawa famous that focusing purely on the rise of reminiscence prices and adjusting the console’s value accordingly could be a call that must take a number of issues into consideration first, as a result of the second and third years of Change 2’s life are going to be essential to its success.
Furukawa defined that whereas Nintendo desires to keep away from conditions the place it’s promoting every unit at a loss, he additionally doesn’t suppose it must be “overly influenced” by what may very well be a short-term pattern. If it may well hold {hardware} costs the identical regardless of a drop in profitability, and extra folks proceed to purchase Change 2 because of this, it can theoretically have the ability to promote extra software program and make extra revenue there.
Final 12 months Nintendo held hearth on Change 2 pre-orders within the US resulting from financial uncertainty within the area (together with tariffs set by the US president), earlier than ultimately saying that whereas the console itself wouldn’t see a value improve at launch, some equipment would.
“Nintendo Change 2 equipment will expertise value changes from these introduced on April 2 [2025] resulting from modifications in market circumstances,” it mentioned on the time. “Different changes to the value of any Nintendo product are additionally potential sooner or later relying on market circumstances.”
This got here to move in August, when Nintendo introduced that it was rising the value of the unique Change console within the US resulting from “market circumstances”, rising the value of Change to $339 (from $299), Change OLED to $399 (from $349) and a Change Lite to $229 (from $199).
