Nintendo Undoes Its Own Switch 2 Price Hike for Black Friday

Nintendo does not cut prices on its own games often, and it does not take back a price increase. Starting November 22, it is doing a version of both.

The company announced its Black Friday offers on Thursday. The headline is the Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World Bundle at $499.99, on sale from November 22 through December 5. The box carries the console, a full download of Mario Kart World and a three-month Nintendo Switch Online individual membership. Nintendo prices the saving at $50 against the bundle's regular suggested price.

The number underneath

The number underneath matters more than the saving. On September 1, Nintendo raised the price of a Switch 2 in the United States from $449.99 to $499.99, pointing at rising memory costs. That means the Black Friday bundle costs exactly what the bare console costs today — the game and the membership arrive on top of the console money, not instead of a discount on it. Polygon described the offer as rolling the console's bestselling launch option back to 2025 prices. Nintendo Life put it more bluntly: the deal wipes out the $50 price hike from earlier this year. When the window closes on December 5, nothing in the announcement suggests the lower price stays.

Why the bundle carries the offer

Mario Kart World is why the bundle, rather than the console, carries the offer. The game was the launch pack-in when the Switch 2 arrived in June 2025, in a bundle that cost $500 then, and it remains the title most new owners play first. Nintendo is not discounting a slow seller to clear a shelf. It is putting its best-known game back at its launch price, for two weeks, in the middle of the shopping season.

A second bundle runs in the same window. The Nintendo Switch 2 + Nintendo Switch Sports Resort Bundle is $529.99, which Nintendo prices as a $27.98 saving, built the same way — console, full game download and the three-month membership.

Twenty dollars off the games

The games are where Nintendo's name usually stays firmest, and they move too. From November 22 through November 29, select physical games are $20 off at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Walmart and Nintendo's own New York and San Francisco stores. On Switch 2, the list runs to Donkey Kong Bananza, Kirby Air Riders, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond — Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and Super Mario Party Jamboree — Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV. Bananza, a $70 game, drops to $50 for the week.

On the original Switch, Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario Party Jamboree and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond are on the list, with prices starting at $39.99. Kotaku noted the obvious on Thursday: Nintendo discounts its in-house games rarely enough that a flat $20 off its newest releases counts as an event.

Digital starts earlier and stays vaguer. A sale on select digital games opens on the Nintendo eShop and the Nintendo Store on November 19 and runs through December 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Nintendo has not named the titles or the discounts yet, so anyone planning around the digital list is planning around a date, not a price.

New games stay full price

The timing around the offers is deliberate. The announcement points holiday shoppers at a shelf that is still filling in: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is recently released on Switch 2, and Pikmin 4 — Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy arrived the same day the offers were announced. Nintendo is discounting the machine and last season's biggest games while this season's releases sit at full price beside them.

Context explains the generosity. Nintendo's November 5 results put the Switch 2 at 26.35 million consoles sold through September 30 — a strong total that still leaves the holiday quarter carrying the year, at a higher price than the machine carried for most of its life. A two-week return to launch pricing, on the bundle most buyers already wanted, protects that quarter without conceding the increase was wrong. The hike stays. It just pauses while the shopping happens.

The practical read is simple. Anyone buying a Switch 2 this year has no reason to pay full price this week: the digital sale starts November 19, the hardware window opens November 22, and the game discounts run that same week. Everything is while supplies last, and the Mario Kart World bundle is also sold on the Nintendo Store website. After December 5, the bundle goes back up and the console keeps its new price — which is the whole reason the next two weeks are worth circling.