- Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has said the company is monitoring the RAM shortage within the industry
- Furukawa explained that hardware profitability depends on component procurement conditions, cost reductions, and the impact of tariffs and exchange rates
- He wouldn’t comment on the “hypothetical” price changes of the Switch 2, but confirmed that “There is no immediate impact on earnings, but it is something we must monitor closely”
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has spoken up about the recent increase in RAM pricing and confirmed that the company is closely monitoring the issue.
Speaking in an interview for Kyoto Shimbun (translated via VGC), Furukawa discussed the challenges the company is facing with the Nintendo Switch 2‘s lower profit margin compared to the original Switch, explaining that the company is keeping an eye on the memory shortage, as well as the ongoing rise in tariffs.
“Hardware profitability depends on factors like component procurement conditions, cost reductions through mass production, and the impact of exchange rates and tariffs,” said Furukawa.
“It’s difficult to generalize. Fundamentally, we aim to address this by advancing component procurement over the medium to long term.”
Despite ongoing RAM shortage concerns, primarily caused by the demand for AI data centers, Furukawa confirmed that the situation isn’t expected to affect the company just yet.
“We procure from suppliers based on our medium- to long-term business plans, but the current memory market is very volatile,” Furukawa said. “There is no immediate impact on earnings, but it is something we must monitor closely.”
The president also declined to comment on whether the Nintendo Switch 2 could be affected in the pricing market, calling it “hypothetical”.
Ahead of the launch of the Switch 2 last year, it was reported that consoles in the US could be hit with a 145% tariff, which threatened to make the Nintendo console even pricier than it already was at $449.99 / £395.99.
At the time, US and Canada pre-orders were affected by delays, but the console managed to achieve a massive launch, selling over 10 million units by late 2025.
However, when asked about the potential impact of higher tariffs in Japan put in place by the US, Furukawa said that Nintendo projected a negative outcome of several tens of billion yen as a result of the tariffs, confirming it did see a corresponding impact in the first half of the year.
“While it’s difficult to accurately gauge 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 US,” the Nintendo president said.
“On the other hand, this is a crucial period for our game 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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