Switch 2's $500 Price Hike Comes With Two New Bundles
The Switch 2’s second year is starting with a $50 sting. Nintendo confirmed the console’s base price will jump from $450 to $500, and to soften that landing it’s reviving the Mario Kart World bundle — now $550 — alongside a new Nintendo Switch Sports Resort bundle at $530, due October 22. Both come with a 90-day Nintendo Switch Online trial, and neither includes a physical copy of its game.
For anyone buying a handheld in 2026, the math just shifted. At $500, the Switch 2 now costs as much as a Steam Deck OLED, and the price hike lands at a time when bundle savings matter more than ever, with refurbished bundles and memory-card deals suddenly looking like the smarter buy. That means bundle value is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s the deciding factor for buyers weighing whether those digital codes are worth the savings over a bare console.
The Bundle Math Still Works — Barely
The original launch bundle sold the console plus Mario Kart World for $500, putting the game at an effective $50 when the standalone console was $450. The new version does exactly the same trick: $550 minus a $500 console equals a $50 digital game, plus the 90-day online trial. So the discount structure hasn’t changed — but the psychological anchor has. Dropping $550 a year into a generation, with launch hype cooling, feels different from doing it at launch. And with Nintendo blaming tariffs for the increase — even after a Supreme Court ruling declared those tariffs illegal — the extra $50 isn’t going anywhere.
The Switch Sports Resort bundle is the sharper deal on paper: $530 for the console plus a digital game code, an effective $30 addition. But that math depends on the game’s standalone price, which Nintendo hasn’t announced. If Sports Resort launches at $60, that’s a solid saving; if it’s cheaper, the discount evaporates. Either way, neither bundle includes a cartridge, so the value is locked to Nintendo’s digital storefront rather than retail shelves.
Digital-Only Means Your Storage, Not Their Problem
Both bundles ship with download codes, which is a meaningful detail for handheld owners. A physical cartridge can be swapped, shelved, or traded, and it keeps the console’s internal storage free. A digital bundle is effectively a promise that you’ll leave a chunk of the Switch 2’s 256GB occupied from day one — and when the next wave of exclusives lands, you’ll be shopping for microSD Express cards before you’re shopping for games.
Nintendo hasn’t released install sizes for either title, but on a 256GB drive that also has to hold system files and updates, a mandatory download is a heavier toll than a cartridge slot. If you’re coming from a Switch 1 with a drawer full of physical games, the shift to code-only bundles is a real break from habit. Budget for storage upfront, or the ‘discount’ disappears into a card purchase.
A 90-Day Trial That’s Over Before You Notice
Then there’s the subscription angle. Both bundles include 90 days of Nintendo Switch Online — not the Expansion Pack, not a family plan, just the base tier. That gets you online play and cloud saves, but not the GameCube, GBA, and N64 libraries, the Zelda upgrades, or the paid DLC allowances. For a handheld-first player, the omissions sting: the retro libraries are a big part of why Switch Online has value on a portable, and cloud saves matter even more when you’re suspending a game mid-commute.
Ninety days is also the length of a trial designed to convert. Nintendo is betting that Mario Kart World’s online lobbies and Sports Resort’s multiplayer hooks will make you forget the clock. Given how the company squeezes value from its ecosystem, that’s a safe bet — but it’s still a thin addition to a console that just got $50 more expensive. If you’re buying now, the Mario Kart World bundle remains the stronger value: $50 for one of the system’s biggest games, with the Sports Resort bundle’s savings less certain. Just keep that storage card in the same cart.