A report by The Japan Times suggests that Nintendo’s pricing policy for the Switch OLED may have an industry-wide impact. The report claims that major manufacturers have been keeping an eye on Nintendo’s policies, which have priced the Switch OLED at $50 more than the original, despite costing only $10 more to manufacture.
The report quotes Ace Research Institute analyst, Hideki Yasuda, who said that a precedent for charging more will be set across the industry should Nintendo’s policy result in a sales boost for the Switch. The Japan Times also claims that an anonymous source within Sony’s PlayStation department has said that the company is “closely monitoring” the market response to Nintendo’s new policy.
This pricing policy was backed up by Analyst Michael Pachter, who claimed that Nintendo wouldn't be charging the higher price unless it was confident of the console selling. He pointed out that most people use their Switch as a handheld console, so the bigger OLED screen alone would be worth the additional $50 for a lot of people who would be looking to upgrade once the new Switch launches.
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The Switch OLED features a seven-inch OLED screen with 1280x720p resolution and 64GB of memory. It also sports a wider and sturdier flap instead of the flimsy stand featured in the original model; the dock also features a LAN cable port. It will launch on October 8, 2021 and is up for pre-order.
Nintendo has also announced that you won’t have to buy a whole new console if you’re looking to upgrade your Switch dock with a LAN cable. “The white dock and black dock will be sold separately (no HDMI cable, no AC adaptor, not in a package) on the Nintendo online store. It will not be sold at retail,” Nintendo confirmed. The dock will be sold exclusively on Nintendo’s online store for $60, or $40 for a refurbished one.
Unfortunately, it seems that scalpers have started listing the Switch OLED for ridiculous prices. Ebay is already populated with a number of listings, for prices above the actual $350. While that was expected, some of them have listed the console for $800, which is absurd even by scalper standards.
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