Switch 2 Price Hike Makes PS5 Cheaper in Japan

¥4,980. That's roughly $31, and starting May 25th, it'll be the gap separating the PS5 from the Switch 2 in Japan, with Sony's console sitting on the cheaper side. It's a bizarre reversal that nobody predicted when the Switch 2 launched, and it tells you a lot about how volatile the hardware market has become in 2026.

Nintendo announced a price increase for its Japan-only, language-locked Switch 2 model, jumping ¥10,000 from ¥49,980 to ¥59,980 (roughly $320 to $383). The company cited "changes in market conditions," pointing to soaring memory prices driven by AI demand and the economic fallout from ongoing geopolitical conflict. Sony raised PS5 prices globally last month but held the line on its own Japan-exclusive language-locked model at ¥55,000, roughly $351. The result: a PlayStation home console that undercuts Nintendo's handheld hybrid in the one market where PlayStation has historically struggled most.

On paper, this looks like an opportunity for Sony. In practice, I don't think it changes anything.

The Games Problem

Price matters, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The most recent Famitsu sales data, covering the week ending April 26th, paints a picture that no price advantage can fix. Switch 2 moved 45,000 units that week. PS5 sold 13,000. The best-selling game was Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, which has pushed nearly 750,000 units in Japan since its mid-April launch. Second place went to Pokémon Pokopia, a Switch 2 exclusive approaching one million domestic sales since early March.

Out of the top 30 games on the Japanese charts that week, only two were PS5 titles: Pragmata and Crimson Desert. Everything else was Nintendo. Mario Kart World, the updated re-release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and a deep bench of first-party software dominate the landscape in a way that makes the console war feel less like a competition and more like two companies operating in different markets entirely.

Sony's free-to-play titles, like the recently launched gacha game NTE, will attract Japanese players, but those games also run on PC and mobile. They don't move PS5 hardware the way a Nintendo exclusive moves Switch 2 units.

This is the core issue, and it's been the core issue for PlayStation in Japan for years now. Japanese consumers aren't choosing Switch 2 over PS5 because of a ¥5,000 difference. They're choosing it because Nintendo makes the games they want to play. You can't buy Tomodachi Life on a PS5. You can't play Pokémon Pokopia on a PS5. Until that changes, and I don't see how it does, no pricing quirk is going to shift the balance.

Memory Prices and the AI Ripple Effect

The more interesting thread here is why this price flip is happening at all. Nintendo's stated reason for the hike, soaring memory costs driven by AI infrastructure demand, is the same pressure that's been squeezing the entire tech supply chain. AI companies are hoovering up NAND and DRAM at a pace that's distorting pricing for everyone downstream, and console manufacturers are feeling it whether they're building AI features or not.

Sony absorbed the hit by raising prices everywhere except Japan. Nintendo held Japan's price at launch but couldn't sustain it for long. Both strategies have costs: Sony's global increases drew backlash, while Nintendo's Japan-specific hike risks sticker shock in its strongest territory. Neither company is in a comfortable position, and if memory prices keep climbing, more adjustments are likely on both sides.

I wrote recently about the PS6 facing a potential memory crisis, and this Switch 2 price hike is the same problem hitting a different company. The AI boom is making hardware more expensive across the board, and console pricing, which has always been a carefully managed balancing act, is getting harder to hold together.

What's likely to happen is straightforward: Nintendo's price increase will slow Switch 2 sales in Japan somewhat, but it won't redirect those buyers toward PS5. Japanese gamers who balk at ¥59,980 for a Switch 2 are more likely to wait for a sale or buy the original Switch than pivot to a PlayStation ecosystem that doesn't carry the software they care about. Sony being cheaper by default is a statistical curiosity, not a strategic win. The PS5 needed more Japanese games three years ago. A ¥4,980 price gap in May 2026 isn't going to fill that hole.