bonzobanana said:
Here in the UK I can pick up a digital PS5 for £269.99 for a console with a 10 Teraflop GPU and a huge amount of CPU resources and a long list of great games but sadly not many exclusives. The Switch 2 is around £400 discounted with mario kart but we keep seeing a lot of returned/refurbished stock which is often close to £300 but of course it goes out of stock quickly. Japan pays less than £250 for Switch 2 without game. It's a completely different price point for the Switch 2 in Europe compared to Japan. I reckon if Japan had our pricing and we had theirs the sales figures would reverse in each region.
Nintendo doesn't want to be competitive in pricing in Europe unless they have to. I'm old enough to remember their N64 launch in the UK, it was £250 but absolutely failed at launch so very quickly it was £150 maybe just a month or so later and then before you knew it it was £99 and at the end it was selling for £49-79 years later. From what I understand if sales continue at the current level in the UK there will be a lot of stock available for January sales. As retailers are saturated with stock, there are some reasonable reductions currently but we shall see. What is clear is the Switch 2 has an incredibly high return ratio so refurbs/returns should be available in the New Year at a great price. Cheapest I've seen recently was £272 on ebay using discount codes. Not much more than the Japanese price of about £245-248. So if you don't mind a lack of a seal on the box could be a great deal. Even at that price I personally wouldn't buy it yet as there aren't enough exclusives to justify the purchase. However I'll probably be onboard in maybe 18 months. I really want a better Switch 2 with a better screen and decent battery life.
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It doesn't matter what Nintendo does in Europe. It won't have online crossplay EA Sports, it won't have GTA, it won't have CoD, it won't have Battlefield. It won't have any of the live service games people want to play outside Fortnite. How would that lead them to be competitive vs PS5 in Europe? Basically none of the games that dominates the software charts in every European country is coming to Switch 2. Switch 2 will only sell to people who want to play Nintendo games, and they aren't as many in Europe as in the US.
I don't see how you think Europe is in any way comparable to Japan. In Europe people buy consoles to play GTA or EA Sports FC, in Japan people to a much larger extent buy consoles because of stuff like Pokemon, Mario or Splatoon. In the UK, Nintendo like other Japanese stuff is a niche and not for mainstream gamers there, who mostly play western games. Nintendo is fully mainstream in Japan.
Nintendo is launching a new Fire Emblem game in 2026, you think that is making every British gamer all hot and bothered about getting a Switch 2 this year? No, instead they watch a CoD trailer on youtube and then order a PS5 on Amazon 5 seconds later. Anything to do with Japan is in the UK regarded as nerdy weeb stuff, so its hard for any Japanese company making Japanese games to be relevant there.
Last edited by Sephiran - on 29 November 2025