The cheapest countries to buy a Nintendo Switch

Like its distant relative, the Game Boy, the Nintendo Switch has cemented its place in history as one of the definitive handheld gaming devices. Its popularity is such that after almost seven years on the market, it’s still regularly at its $300 retail price in the USA, before sales tax. Globetrotting readers may have been looking for a way to pass the time on long-haul flights and noticed that the Switch isn’t the same price in the country they’re passing through. So we’ve compared some countries and asked the question, where’s the cheapest place to buy the Nintendo Switch?

This comparison should particularly interest tourists. That extra sales tax you pay in the US usually only applies to residents, and it’s the same for lots of other nations. This means that if you’re on vacation and you want to buy the Switch, you can often either claim back the sales tax for that region or avoid it entirely. It’s an enticing prospect, but are the savings worth hunting out? That’s what we’re going to explore.

We’ll keep things simple by doing a like-for-like comparison of the price of the standard model of the Nintendo Switch. We could do the same for the Switch Lite and OLED models, but you can be pretty confident that the cheapest and most expensive countries for these versions will be broadly similar to those of the original.

Let’s get into the numbers.

What are the cheapest countries to buy a Nintendo Switch?

We’ve laid out the price of the Nintendo Switch in each country in the table below. The local prices don’t include the sales tax of that state that you’d pay as a resident, as we’re looking at it from the point of view of a tourist. We’ve then converted those regional prices into the equivalent value in USD at the time of writing.

The asterisk by the United States price is to signify that this is the one entry in the table that includes tax. That’s what a US resident would pay. Sales tax in America varies by state, so we’ve used an approximate 10% increase to reflect an average amount of tax.

Based on the countries we looked at and the current exchange rates, the cheapest place to buy a Nintendo Switch is Japan. Russia is almost as cheap, with the portable gaming console costing just over $200 in each country when you take tax out of the equation. South Korea is the third cheapest country at $249.

Of the countries we looked at, Uruguay is the most expensive place to buy a Nintendo Switch. It seems hideously overpriced there at over $600, but there are undoubtedly reasons for this hefty price tag. We’ll discuss some of them below.

Is this the best price I’ll see for the Nintendo Switch in each country?

Almost certainly not. The only comparison we’re making — the only one we really can make — is how the official retail prices differ in each country. There may well be third-party vendors who advertise the Switch at a better price. But whether at home or abroad, you should always be wary about a price that seems too good to be true. It’s common for less scrupulous sellers to package up a reconditioned or second-hand model and tout it as being brand new. Buying from an official outlet is your best chance of avoiding such shadowy behavior.

Having said that, it’s very possible that you can find a good deal on the device. After all, it’s been available to buy since 2017. It could be going cheap in a clearance sale or a special offer as part of a promotional event.

Should I buy the Nintendo Switch from another country?

It’s not for us to tell you how to spend your money. If you’re passing through Japan and you need something to occupy you on long bus journeys, it might make complete sense to pick up a cut-price Switch. Just bear in mind that it might have a different software configuration, it would be very difficult to return if faulty, and any guarantee it comes with would be almost worthless once you’re back in the USA.

One thing is clear — there’s certainly no case to be made for traveling for the sole purpose of getting a cheaper Nintendo Switch. The $120 or so you’d stand to save would be way less than you’d end up paying in flight costs alone, never mind the rest of your trip expenses. Besides, you can often find deals on the device in the US that make the savings even more marginal. At the time of writing, the Nintendo Switch – Animal Crossing: New Horizons Edition is reduced from $347.99 to $319.99 on Amazon. That’s a modest offer in comparison to some of the discounts we see.

There are a great many costs to the manufacturer and retailers in bringing any product to market. They include labor, shipping, taxes, and much more. These costs are often very specific to the region of the world. It stands to reason that if the cost of getting the Nintendo Switch onto the shelves is wildly different between countries, the retail price should also be different. The marketing team will also have a say, with prices set to maximize profits for everyone involved.

Another huge factor is that we’re converting all of these prices to US dollars. The retail price of the Switch may not have changed much in seven years, but exchange rates have swung massively in that time. Japan might not have been the cheapest country in 2017, and in US dollar terms, it might not be by this time next week. Such is the nature of the global economy. We’ll revisit this article periodically to find out.