Club Nintendo

[Wyrdness]

firebush03 said:

Also, I think I've got an idea as to why Nintendo has been so tight-lipped regarding their release schedule as of recent: Notice how Nintendo has only done price hikes in the times where the future release schedule is most ambiguous, i.e. right before a Nintendo Direct. If consumers know what Nintendo is planning six months to a year from now, then they'll be more likely to purchase their Switch 2 system prior to a price hike instead of right around when the new, hotly anticipated game releases. The reason Nintendo would want to avoid this is (a.) I would think they earn more profit from selling their systems at the higher price (i.e. closer to the release of the new game), and (b.) Nintendo wants hardware momentum to remain steady and strong, and not reliant on price hikes to artificially boom/bust demand.

Just look at how subdued the hardware bump was in Japan for the launch of Splatoon Radiers, for example. Those who knew they would be purchasing a Switch 2 to play this game did so prior to the price hike. Meanwhile had the game not been revealed until (let's say) June, I'd imagine the hardware bump would have been far more significant during the launch of Raiders.

Nintendo has always made more money from software sales their business model is built around it hence why their prices are steady even after years on the market, since the NES their platforms have had a 30% license fee on all third party software. This software approach is why they tend to sit on hardware for as long as possible when the userbase is buying games, S2 likely has a 8-10 planned run as selling hardware in the long run is just as good as short term spikes for them we saw this with the 3DS.