No Nintendo Switch price rise for now – wants to ‘avoid pricing people out’

metro.co.uk:

Despite rising production and shipping costs, Nintendo is eager to avoid increasing the cost of the Switch for the time being.

With people spending less and less money on video games, the last thing you’d want to see happen is for the hobby to become even more expensive than it already is.

Increased costs for manufacturing and shipping has already led to Meta bumping up the price of its Oculus Quest 2 headset. So, since companies like Nintendo are also being affected, it’s only natural to wonder if its Nintendo Switch console will follow suit.

For the time being, Nintendo seems to be adamantly against making the Switch any more expensive, with president Shuntaro Furukawa saying the company wants to ‘avoid pricing people out.’

He doesn’t appear to rule out the possibility, however, saying a price increase isn’t being considered ‘at the moment.’

Furukawa also can’t say if Nintendo will meet its Switch sales targets for the fiscal year. During the last financial update from the company, it was discovered that Switch sales overall have dipped by 23%.

Although the future is uncertain, Furukawa believes upcoming games will help give ‘a boost to hardware.’ It recently released Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and has new Splatoon and Pokémon games slated for September and November, respectively.

When asked by Nikkei how Nintendo is faring with ongoing semiconductor shortages, Furukawa says ‘With cooperation from various business partners, we’re on track for improvement from the latter half of this summer.

‘But in terms of our sales forecast of 21 million units for the fiscal year through March 2023, we only have a clear production outlook for this year. Beyond that, things are uncertain.’

He adds that the problem Nintendo is facing isn’t so much