The Nintendo Switch 2 is Nintendo’s most expensive gaming hardware to date, and yet, they continue to smash records and outpace the $300USD Nintendo Switch 1 (which already had Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda Breath of the Wild at this point). And the same goes for software sales in many respects: DKBananza, for instance, costs $10USD more than BotW did back in 2017, yet sales figures are not all too dissimilar up until now. Same can be said about $70USD Pokopia seeing a bigger debut than Super Mario Odyssey at $60USD, and Pokémon Legends Z-A costing $70USD on NS2 yet selling about as well as any other $60USD Pokémon game.
The Nintendo Switch saw a price hike across all SKUs in US back in August 2025, yet sales have seemingly carried along as though nothing even changed.
The PlayStation 5 has seen price hike after price hike in its hardware over these past five-and-a-half years… yet the system remains in-line with PS4 sales figures, and has even witnessed some truly remarkable sales figures notably throughout Europe.
The standard cost for your major AAA production sits at around $70USD, and yet, we continue to see time and time again sales records being shattered: Elden Ring, Hogwartz Legacy, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and (very likely) GTAVI.
My question to you all is this: Do price hikes truly have as substantial an impact on sales figures as the internt likes to suggest? There definitely are many many instances where as price hike does cause issues (most notably $250USD 3DS, $500USD PS3, and the August 2024 JP price hike for PS5), but there are just as many instances where sales figures in fact are bolstered.
