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[Updated] Nintendo Switch quietly becomes R1K more expensive in South Africa

Update: We’ve been informed by Core that the RRP on the original Nintendo Switch is now R7 999. We’ll have more information on this soon.

The original story follows below.


Over the past few months the Rand has had a rough go, with it dipping as low as almost R20 to the US dollar at one point. This has spelled bad news for the Nintendo Switch locally as the console has increased in price by R1 000.

The original Nintendo Switch has gone from R5 999 to R6 999. The cheaper option – the Nintendo Switch Lite – has increased from R3 999 to R4 999. These will be the new recommended retail prices (RRP) for these consoles going into the future.

“We do our utmost to ensure pricing remains as affordable as possible, but the recent substantial devaluation of the Rand has resulted in imported products becoming more expensive. To ensure product remains as affordable as possible, we offer a variety of finance and payment options for our customers,” says Frank Mourinho, general manager at Core, the official distributors of Nintendo in South Africa.

The finance and payment options mentioned are Mobicred and FNB payment plans.

The official Nintendo Store reflects these changes on its website. Its listings for the original Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch Lite in Coral have the new, higher prices.

There is some differences in the pricing here, however. On the aforementioned Nintendo Store, the Turquoise and Grey versions of the Nintendo Switch Lite are still priced at R3 999 each. If you wanted these you really should grab them now.

Similarly, when we phoned up a physical location of retailer BT Games, it still had the Switch Lite at R3 999 at the time of writing. The original Switch, however, was already at the higher R6 999 price.

You may be wondering why we phoned up a store instead of going online. We did this because, at least at the moment, most of the big online retailers don’t have stock of Nintendo’s console.

The BT Games online site, Raru, Loot and Takealot are all out of stock. We can only assume that, when more stock comes in, the newer higher prices will be in effect.

The exception here is Raru, however, which also has the Coral Nintendo Switch Lite on pre-order for R4 999, with an expected release date of 19th June, much like the Nintendo Store.

All of this is also a poor omen for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, both of which are still planned to launch at the end of this year. When they will land on local shores – and how much they will cost – has not been revealed by the makers and importers of each just yet.

[h/t Dawid Venter]

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