TL;DR
- Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders will open in the US next Thursday, April 24.
- Pricing for the console itself and first-party launch games remains unchanged.
- Accessories are seeing small price bumps, largely in the $5 range.
Nintendo’s Switch 2 is easily one of the most anticipated new console launches in years, and gamers everywhere tuned in to get all the details of how this follow-up would debut back at the start of the month. And while that should have been a relatively straightforward announcement, the news could not have arrived at a worse time, landing smack dab in the middle of the White House’s ham-fisted introduction of sweeping new tariffs. The same uncertainty that sent stock markets plunging also forced Nintendo to reconsider its own strategy, and cancel plans for an April 9 start to pre-orders. Now we’re finally learning what’s going to happen.
In the United States, Nintendo says that Switch 2 pre-orders will now open on April 24.
Of course, the “when” was just half of the question here, with the other big one concerning what impact all this mess would have on pricing. The Switch 2 launch already shocked some fans with its $450 base price, to say nothing of $80 games. Today Nintendo starts addressing those concerns, and the results are a bit of a mixed bag.
The good news is that the primary prices aren’t changing. Nintendo will still sell the Switch 2 for $450, or bundle the system with Mario Kart World for $500. Separately, the game keeps its $80 price tag, and the new Donkey Kong title is keeping the same $70 price announced earlier this month.
But then there’s the accessories. And nearly across the board here, Nintendo’s raising prices. The new camera add-on goes from $50 to $55, a pair of new Joy-Cons goes from $90 to $95, and even an extra Joy-Con strap gets a $1 bump. Luckily, those are all pretty modest increases, and it could honestly have been a lot worse.
Considering just how reserved these adjustments have been, we have to wonder to what extent Nintendo might be subsidizing things to avoid even steeper hikes. The company also drops a warning that with the economy in such an unpredictable state right now, it may have to revisit these prices and make further changes, still. Isn’t 2025 fun?
