- Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has said that the company is monitoring the RAM shortage within the industry.
- Furukawa explained that the profitability of hardware depends on the procurement conditions of components, cost reductions and the impact of tariffs and exchange rates.
- He declined to comment on the Switch 2’s “hypothetical” price changes, but confirmed that “there’s no immediate impact on earnings, but it’s something we need to monitor closely.”
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa spoke about the recent increase in the price of RAM and confirmed that the company is closely monitoring the issue.
In an interview for Kyoto Shimbun (translated via VGC), Furukawa spoke about the challenges the company faces with the Nintendo Switch 2’s lower profit margin compared to the original Switch, explaining that the company is keeping an eye on memory shortages as well as the continued increase in fees.
“Hardware profitability depends on factors such as component procurement conditions, cost reductions through mass production, and the impact of exchange rates and tariffs,” Furukawa said.
“It is difficult to generalize. Fundamentally, our goal is to address this by advancing component procurement in the medium and long term.”
Despite concerns about RAM shortages, mainly caused by demand for AI data centers, Furukawa confirmed that the situation is not expected to affect the company for the time being.
“We buy from suppliers based on our medium- and long-term business plans, but the current memory market is very volatile,” Furukawa said. “There is no immediate impact on profits, but it is something we need to monitor closely.”
The president also declined to comment on whether the Nintendo Switch 2 could be affected in the price market, calling it “hypothetical.”
Ahead of the Switch 2’s launch last year, it was reported that consoles in the US could be hit with a 145% tariff, threatening to make Nintendo’s console even more expensive than it already was: $449.99 / £395.99.
At the time, US and Canadian pre-orders were hit by delays, but the console achieved a massive launch, selling over 10 million units by the end of 2025.
However, when asked about the potential impact of the higher tariffs on Japan implemented by the United States, Furukawa said that Nintendo projected a negative result of several tens of billions of yen as a result of the tariffs, confirming that it did see a corresponding impact in the first half of the year.
“While it is difficult to precisely measure the future impact, our basic policy is to recognize tariffs as a cost and pass them on to prices as much as possible, not just in the United States,” said the Nintendo president.
“On the other hand, this is a crucial period for our gaming business as we promote the adoption of new hardware and maintain the momentum of our platforms. We are working on this while carefully considering the situation.”
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