this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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Bet they priced it that high to get ahead of any tariffs that might affect them. Consumers really don’t like to see price hikes right around a launch. Plus they still want to milk the Switch 1 since they probably have a very healthy profit margin on that machine. This price makes the Switch 1 look very appealing for people who still haven’t bought one.
Okay, but why are they charging $80 for a digital game, which tariffs don't apply to?
I believe the tariffs do apply to digital goods as well depending where the server is.
Either way, the main reason would be because of digital was cheaper it would cannibalize physical sales.
How could it? It's just data, no physical goods are being imported. Do tariffs apply to phone calls from other countries?
It doesn’t matter if it’s data, tariffs are meant to be protectionist so you could easily say that since Nintendo is headquartered in Japan or because the majority of their workers are in Japan or because their name sounds vaguely Japanese that all sales of their product in insert country here has to pay an additional 10% tax
I don't THINK that's how tariffs work - I'm pretty sure it's physical goods only - but I'm no expert, so I guess we'll see.
They currently don’t affect digital goods but there is no actual reason they couldn’t make one that does we are in some truly interesting times
Don't know, use internet these days, but in ye old days taxes sort of applied to long distance calls in a way so I'm unsure
It's about 100 bucks more than the og switch.. theres 24% tariff. 24% of 450 is 108. Math checks out for the physical copy of games too.
It's too close to be a coincidence
Then why does the rest of the world, who don't have tariffs on Japan, have to pay those prices as well?
Idk about the whole world. I did look up the price for japan It's 340 bucks in Japan.
It's $515 including tax in Germany. It's too much for my taste.
Yes, Japan got the only exception because Nintendo knows the price sucks and they want to make sure it sells well in their home country. Mind you, this is a special region-locked Switch that only supports Japanese. A non-region-locked Switch that costs more will also be available there.