Costco Switch 2 Bundle Banks $100+ Before Price Hike
Nintendo’s Switch 2 price bump lands September 1st — the console jumps $50 to $499.99 — but Costco members can sidestep the increase entirely with a bundle that stacks a 256GB microSD Express card and a full year of Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack on top of the hardware, all for the current $499.99 price. That’s roughly $109 of extras before you’ve even opened the box, and it reframes what a sensible Switch 2 starter package should look like in 2026.
For handheld players, the real story isn’t just the savings — it’s the storage. The Switch 2 ships with 256GB of internal storage, and anyone who’s spent a single evening curating a library knows how fast that vanishes.
The Price-Hike Clock Makes This Bundle a Timing Gift
The math is straightforward: the 256GB microSD Express card retails around $59, and a year of the Expansion Pack tier normally runs $49.99. Combined, that’s over $100 of value in a box that costs exactly what the console alone costs today. Costco is effectively absorbing the September increase and then some — assuming you can live with the membership requirement and the warehouse-inventory lottery that comes with these bundles.
The timing deserves emphasis. Anyone planning to buy a Switch 2 this fall was about to pay $50 more for the privilege, with no storage and no subscription included — the price hike that’s made refurbished bundles and memory cards the deal to grab. This bundle inverts that equation: you’re getting the storage you’d need anyway, plus the subscription tier that unlocks the Zelda upgrade packs, the GameCube and GBA catalogs, and online play — all before the hike kicks in. If you were going to buy even two of those things separately, this is the best-priced route to a complete setup.
Storage Math: Why the microSD Express Card Is the Real Hero
The storage addition matters more than its sticker value suggests. First-party Switch 2 games typically run 10-25GB, while bigger third-party titles can hit 50GB, which puts the internal 256GB in genuine jeopardy after just a handful of installs. The bundled card roughly doubles your usable space and should hold anywhere from 5 to 20 additional games depending on the mix — and unlike the original Switch, the Express class is what the console needs to run games directly from external storage, so this isn’t a speculative upgrade you’d skip — the same call that made storage the best pick in Nintendo’s build-your-own bundle. If you’re not a Costco member, Switch 2 microSD Express cards are the accessory to hunt down.
The Expansion Pack year is the quieter win for on-the-go play. Cloud saves keep progress safe between docked and handheld sessions, and the retro catalogs — GameCube and GBA especially — are ideal pick-up-and-play material for commutes. For anyone eyeing a Switch 2 ahead of the price increase, this bundle is the strongest argument to act now. For everyone else, it’s the high-water mark every other bundle or bare console will be measured against through the holidays.