GameSeek to raise Switch price back up to RRP

After honoring its Switch pre-order price of 198.50, UK retailer GameSeek has told MCV that it will be raising the price of the console to match its RRP of 279.99.

We do everything we can for our customers, but keeping [Switch] at this price post-launch is impossible due to the amount we are losing on every unit,” said managing director Stephen Staley. Post-launch the price will have to go back up to the Nintendo RRP sadly.”

GameSeek was one of the first retailers in the UK to open pre-orders for Nintendo’s new console. However, while many of its rivals opted for a higher pre-order price, such as GAME whose initial online placeholder was priced at a whopping 999.99 (the difference of which would, of course, be refunded at launch), Staley says he was convinced the console would launch for under 200 and decided to price his pre-orders accordingly.

The speculation at the time was that the console was going to be below 200 as per the Nintendo Wii launch,” he said. I also believed that Nintendo wouldn’t make the same mistake as they did with the pricing on the Wii U. I hoped that it would be below 200 to give it the best possible chance of being a success.”

When asked if GameSeek was making a loss on its pre-order sales, Staley replied, Yes, of course.”

The good news is that GameSeek has been able to deliver every last pre-order in time for launch day: Every single unit will be sent on time to arrive with the customer on release,” said Staley. This has already been confirmed to every customer.”