Starting May 25th, the PS5 will be cheaper than the Nintendo Switch 2 in Japan – which is a sentence that would have sounded absurd six months ago. As reported by Push Square, Nintendo is raising the Japan-only language-locked Switch 2 model by ¥10,000 (~$63), pushing it from ¥49,980 to ¥59,980 (~$383). Sony, meanwhile, held its Japan-locked PS5 at ¥55,000 (~$351) when it rolled out global price hikes last month – leaving a ¥4,980 (~$31) gap in PlayStation’s favour.
Nintendo cited “changes in market conditions” for the increase – which covers soaring NAND flash memory costs driven by AI demand and the broader economic fallout from the US and Israel’s war with Iran. That’s the same pressures pushing up hardware costs industry-wide, and it’s worth noting Nintendo has been adjusting pricing across the board in 2026. Sony’s own calculus on Japan was different: after hiking PS5 prices everywhere else, keeping the domestic model competitive was apparently the one line it wouldn’t cross.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth for Sony, though – being ¥4,980 cheaper doesn’t fix the actual problem. In the week ending April 26th, the Switch 2 moved 45,000 units in Japan against the PS5’s 13,000. Of the top 30 best-selling games that same week per Famitsu, only 2 were PS5 titles – Pragmata and Crimson Desert – while Nintendo dominated with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (178,000 units in a single week, nearly 750,000 domestically since mid-April) and Switch 2 exclusive Pokémon Pokopia, which is closing in on one million units sold since early March.
A price edge only matters if consumers are on the fence – and Japanese players buying into Pokopia, Mario Kart World, and an updated Animal Crossing: New Horizons are not on the fence. Switch 2’s momentum in Japan is a software story as much as a hardware one, and Sony currently has no equivalent anchor title to pull casual buyers its way. The ¥4,980 advantage is real – it just isn’t the lever PlayStation needs right now.
Does the lower PS5 price change anything for you, or is software still the only thing that matters when picking a console? Sound off in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more breaking gaming news and PlayStation coverage.
