OLED would have been more expensive regardless. It went on preorder for 349€ on Amazon vs. 329€ for the standard model.

Now the pricing makes more sense.

These prices look kinda weird. At first glance the lite does not seem like a good deal at all. Maybe for some it is, but for £60 more you get a standard switch....

Also, was the OLED always priced at £309? seems like an odd price point... When I heard the original model was getting a price cut, I thought the switch pricing would look like this.

• Nintendo Switch Lite: £179.99
• Nintendo Switch: £259.99
• Nintendo Switch - OLED Model: £299.99

Also, I live in China, and only visited Europe once and that was a long time ago so im not really familiar with their pricing on anything gaming related.

I'm surprised the Switch is that expensive. That's around twice the price I've paid for other Nintendo consoles/handhelds. Think my Gamecube (2005) and GBA (2003) were only about £60, while my DSLite (2006) and 2DS (2016) were both under £100.

Inflation and cheaper tech

It has always been 300€ here in France and now it's 269€ after the price drop.

Wow  here in Germany it was 329€ and the Lite is still 219€.

Whilst Nintendo to a degree is affected by semiconductor shortages (Mostly to the DRAM and other chips), the SoC is built on a 14nm TSMC process, which isn't class-leading.
There just isn't as much in the way of congestion compared to say... TSMC 7nm which would have to fight between AMD's Radeon, Ryzen, Microsoft Xbox Series X/S, Sony Playstation 5, Apple A12, Kirin 990/980, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Intel, Mediatek and a shit ton more...

We are at that point where Phones/Tablets get priority over a gaming console.

Nintendo is in a very enviable position in the manufacturing scheme of things, this is one of the very few instances of having conservative hardware is going to be a benefit rather than a detriment.

Here in Australia the base Switch costs $469 AUD, which is the equivalent of 250 pounds or 293 Euros.

So we still get a better deal than Europe, but not as good as America, as we pay the equivalent of $346 USD.

Man, I never realized how overpriced the Switch was in Europe.

I am hoping for new price cuts in other regions. However living in Japan, and the excessive demand makes it seem unlikely.

Not really. It's mostly taxes and definetly currency exchange fluctuations since 2017 as the retail prices have not changed.

In Europe, all retail prices must include tax (VAT, around 20%, depends on the country, but it can go as high as 27%) so you should never have to pay more than the advertised price.

I'm pretty sure that's the same case in Australia (10% tax if I remeber correctly)

In America, no taxes are included in the retail price. 

In today's exchange rate 300 USD  = around 250 Euro or 410 AUD.

Add local sales tax and you have 300 Euro (20%) and 450 AUD (10%)

Compare it to the actual RRP (before the price drop): Europe 329 Euro (+29), Australia 469 AUD (+19)

Now add sales tax for the US price, which depends on the location would add $5 to $30 to the total price. 

So today you have $305/$330 (US) vs $389 (Europe) vs $344 (Australia)

It's quite a diffrence, however, in 2017 (1st of April) it was $350 (Europe), $356 (Australia)

I think that's the reason of Europe's price drop, which will bring the price down to the 2017 level (300 euro = around $350)