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The story
Amazon has raised prices on its flagship devices — including the Kindle, Echo, and Fire TV — by as much as 60%. The company cites soaring memory and storage component costs as the reason. Over on 5ch’s hardware/industry board (Geha), the news sparked worries about another Switch 2 price hike, along with fears that component prices may never come back down.
What people said
According to an Amazon spokesperson, the across-the-board price hike was caused by "the rising cost of memory and storage components."
"Alright, unrelated news, but let's dunk on Switch anyway!"
You could've told that without even buying it
Why'd you even buy it lol
Once your library gets big, even just scrolling the list before downloading anything barely works
Just buy the latest model
Bet you're using some cheap one with 2GB of memory
That one's already closing in on 100 million units
If we're going there, the original Switch from the same generation is closing in on 160 million too, and the PS6 is just going to be delayed anyway
Switch 2 is flopping all on its own, so it's fine if it gets delayed
Switch 2 is done for, huh 🤦
Of the games that drove over 10 million in sales for the original Switch, Mario Kart is still the only Switch 2-exclusive new release, and yet it's already sold through 24 million units — where exactly is it flopping?
It's been running all summer
There was even a trick where buying 15 volumes in bulk got you some volumes of Kingdom (a manga series) for free, with gaps in the set
Whether or not they can even release a PS6, they're stuck either way
Performance-wise, there's no problem
It's probably never coming back down
Not just games — there's no such thing as a price cut anymore
Prices only ever go up
Below last year's numbers
Price hikes overseas too starting next month
Possibility of yet another price hike ← NEW
That's exactly the point — the new Pokémon title (fan nickname "Fūha"), the new Animal Crossing, the new open-air Zelda, the new 3D Mario, the new Smash Bros, and Splatoon 4 haven't even come out yet
And it's still selling that much anyway
Then say that once they actually come out
At this stage, the trend can already be called a flop
Iwata said the same thing at a shareholders meeting once too —
"The Wii U will definitely win!"
Sales pace has hit the brakes hard since the hardware price hike though
For a system that's only 1 year and 1 month post-launch, that's still one of the fastest paces ever
Which is why the slowdown is so brutal
Especially in Europe
And why is the whole world just letting it happen
The hyperscalers are in a game of chicken with each other
Well yeah, aside from the year-end/New Year period, it'll probably keep slowing down for the rest of the year
If people were going to buy now, they'd have bought before the price hike at the end of May
Momentum will probably pick back up around when Fūha launches
If it were selling at 60,000 yen, the PS5 would be selling a lot more too
Sure hope momentum comes back even if the hardware gets even more expensive
Not interested in Mario Kart
Not interested in Z-A
Not interested in Pokopia
Not interested in any other Nintendo games either
How many people are even left who'd buy the hardware for Fūha
Sony says the PS5 has already saturated the market, so they're only doing rational, lean production now
"Rational" my ass, it's just not selling anymore 😅
It's absolutely not worth that price, so split the video streaming and free-shipping services apart already
If you're a PC gamer you get free games with it though (Prime Gaming)
Though their main customers are wealthy people anyway
The iPhone announcement coming up soon is going to be brutal too
Honestly, everything is a mess right now
Worse than anyone imagines
Background and Key Points
Amazon’s Kindle, Echo, and Fire TV lineups are staples of the U.S.-market device ecosystem, but 5ch’s Geha (hardware/industry) board reads them through a Japanese-consumer-electronics lens, where “component cost hikes” is shorthand for a very specific 2025–2026 story: memory (DRAM) and NAND flash prices have been climbing globally because hyperscalers — Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta — are buying up chip supply for AI data centers, squeezing what’s left for consumer hardware. Japanese posters connect this directly to Nintendo, since the Switch 2 (launched roughly 13 months before this thread, per post 46) already took one hardware price increase this past May, tied to the same component squeeze, and Sony has separately confirmed it’s deliberately scaling back PS5 production rather than cutting price.
The thread’s actual fault line isn’t about Amazon at all — it’s whether Switch 2 is “flopping.” One camp points to hard numbers, Mario Kart World reportedly moving 24 million units as a Switch 2-exclusive with no other blockbuster titles (Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Zelda, Mario, Smash, Splatoon) yet released; the other points to a real slowdown in sell-through since May’s price hike, especially in Europe, and predicts momentum won’t return until those bigger titles ship.
What’s easy to miss: this isn’t an Amazon-specific pricing decision, and posters note in passing (Apple’s Mac mini/Studio hikes) that it’s industry-wide. What the thread never spells out is that analysts expect this memory shortage to persist through 2026, not resolve quickly — despite one poster’s hope that prices “settle down in a few years.”
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Amazon Hikes Prices on Kindle, Echo, Fire TV by Up to 60%.”
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