Nintendo, like the rest of the industry, has been hit by RAM price hikes. Reports say that the Japanese video game giant is having to pay 41% more for the 12GB of RAM inside the Nintendo Switch 2. As pointed out by Bloomberg, Nintendo has lost a massive $14 billion of its value as a result of memory shortage fears, which translates to an around 4.7% drop in shares.

PC builders have already seen DDR4 and DDR5 RAM costs surge (more so the latter), which are expected to disrupt high-end gaming for “several years,” says Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney. The shortages – which are largely the result of high demand from AI data centers – have reportedly delayed Nvidia’s RTX 50 series Super GPUs, too.

Nintendo hit by memory and storage price hikes

Nintendo hasn’t had a great December on the stock market, declining on almost every trading day, which now represents the company’s lowest level since May 2025, which was just ahead of the Switch 2 launch in early June. Market intelligence firm Trendforce has been reporting on rising memory prices lately, and according to the firm, the total cost of memory modules for Nintendo’s console (which uses 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM) has jumped 41% in the current quarter.

Not only has memory been affected, but we’re also seeing the same with the NAND flash memory industry, which is forcing SSDs to become more expensive. Fast storage is also highly desirable among AI firms to speed up AI inference (the process of an AI model analyzing new, unseen data). Thankfully, this is to a lesser extent, but Trendforce reports an 8% rise in costs, regardless.

It seems more like a matter of time before Nintendo reacts to the price increases by upping the price of the Switch 2. Market research firm Pelham Smithers Associates also explained to Bloomberg that the cost of SD cards is already rising, though the volatility at the moment reveals a range of prices from our search on Amazon.

“The rise of NAND prices is starting to really impact express SD card prices. A 256GB express SD card costs $89.99 on Amazon. This is effectively a cost that Nintendo has passed on to the gamer.”

Pelham Smithers Associates, via Bloomberg

There were a few ways of grabbing the console for cheaper during the Black Friday period, and Pelham Smithers Associates says that a discount on the console + Mario Kart World was one of the “surprises” of the sales, adding “you wouldn’t expect it to be discounted this close to the holiday season”. With manufacturing costs on the rise, this might be one of the last deals we see for a while, at least after the holidays wind down.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.