Nintendo President Says They are Monitoring High RAM Prices and Tariff Impacts - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 January 2026 / 2,398 Views
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa in an interview with Kyoto Shimbun (via VideoGamesChronicle) says Nintendo is monitoring the higher RAM prices and the tariff situation in the US.
"Hardware profitability depends on factors like component procurement conditions, cost reductions through mass production, and the impact of exchange rates and tariffs," said Furukawa. "It’s difficult to generalize. Fundamentally, we aim to address this by advancing component procurement over the medium to long term."
Furukawa stated that increase in RAM prices is due to the AI data centers buying up huge quantities.
"We procure from suppliers based on our medium- to long-term business plans, but the current memory market is very volatile," he stated. "There is no immediate impact on earnings, but it is something we must monitor closely."
Furukawa on the high tariffs said there was a negative impact due to the high tariffs placed on Japan and many other countries by the US.
"While it’s difficult to accurately gauge the future impact, our basic policy is to recognize tariffs as a cost and pass them on to prices as much as possible, not just in the US," he said. "On the other hand, this is a crucial period for our game business as we promote the adoption of new hardware and maintain the momentum of our platforms. We are working on this while carefully considering the situation."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Translation:
We will increase prices.
Sounds to me Furukawa is trying to delay or avoid a price hike for as long as possible. Not good for the momentum of a new system to immediately get smacked with a price bump.
I would think they'd try to keep it where it is through 2026.
Thanks for nothing, Adolf Tariff.
The upcoming spike in prices has little to nothing to do with tariffs
He's still part of the problem, among dozens of other problems with the world today.
If you’re correct, why do you think the President of Nintendo would be mistaken about this being a factor?
Correct, Tariffs have zero impact on DRAM prices except at the time of import into the United States, only American consumers pay that tax, no one else.
However Trump has impacted DRAM prices by enabling unfetted rollout of data centers across the United States, which has ensured a shortage of energy and water which American citizens will pay for. (Thanks by the way, I don't want water and energy shortages in my own nation.)
Trump also failed to ensure proper fabrication capacity will be available for the production of DRAM and NAND, but still decided to dump billions and remove rollout restrictions on data centers which has enabled all of thus.
And who will win in the end? China. China is spinning up DRAM production and will undercut Samsung and Micron in the long term and will likely end up cornering the market.
$500-$550 is on the table. $600 seems too high even for Nintendo, but we'll see.
What a shitshow gaming is becoming. And it didn't need to happen.
And it's all because America is allergic to smart presidents.
Not looking good for the console business as a whole.
