Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has revealed the company has no plans to increase the price of the Nintendo Switch, despite rising manufacturing costs.
Earlier this month, it was revealed sales of the Switch had dropped by 23 per cent in recent months due to a shortage of semiconductor components, while profits for the 2022 to 2023 financial year are currently forecast to be down 29 per cent.
Speaking to Nikkei though, Furukawa said Nintendo wants to “avoid pricing people out.”
Talking about increasing production after a shortage of manufacturing supplies, Furukawa said “we’re on track for improvement from the latter half of this summer.” He went on to say things are also on track for Nintendo to sell 21million Switch units this financial year but “beyond that, things are uncertain.”
“[The Switch] is in its sixth year since its launch. All I can say is that we’ll try to keep up sales at the same pace. Having hit software also gives a boost to hardware,” he continued. ”We have a lineup of new games that will allow us to take a crack at meeting our sales forecast, including Splatoon 3 coming out in September and Pokémon Scarlet And Violet in November.”
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Credit: The Pokemon Company
He added: “For the time being, our OLED model will continue to be less profitable than our other models. Costs have undoubtedly increased for shipping not only by air, but also by sea. We’re thinking about what we can do.”
He went on to say Nintendo are not considering price increases “at this point. In order to offer unique entertainment to a wide range of customers, we want to avoid pricing people out. Our competition is the variety of entertainment in the world, and we always think about pricing in terms of the value of the fun we offer.”
This comes as Meta (formerly Facebook) recently announced that it would be increasing the price of its Meta Quest 2 VR headsets by £100 while last month, Riot confirmed it would be increasing the cost of League Of Legends’ in-game currency in “most” regions due to “worldwide inflation.”
In other news, Guillermo del Toro has shared his frustration at the cancellation of Silent Hills, as fellow director Hideo Kojima commemorates the eight-year anniversary of its playable teaser.
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