Katsuhiro Harada: Nintendo Switch "is pretty cheap"

Japanese magazine Famitsu has asked 45 different developers to speak about their opinions about the Nintendo Switch at an official presentation of the console, and while many of them talked about functions such as HD Rumble, one thing in particular came up again and again: the price.

Nintendo Swich is cheaper than expected to these developers, people that really know the specs of the console and also the controllers. One of those is the famous Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada, from Bandai Namco Games. He said:

"The price is exactly what I'd expect from a marketing point of view, but if you count all the individual peripherals... The full thing is pretty cheap, and I say that as someone familiar with the inner workings of the system. I have no idea how they kept the price that low."

Platinum Games' president Itsushi Inaba confirmed, as Nintendo Everything translates, that his company is developing games for the hybrid console, but didn't go any further. That's why he knows what's inside the box and was surprised by the price:

"We understand what the hardware is capable of. Which is why the price was surprising. This thing is seriously cheap. I think it's the result of a tremendous amount of work, and it's an indication of their strong desire to see their hardware reach a lot of markets."

From Capcom, Sengoku Basara producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi said he expected the price to be around "thirty-something thousand yen". Ganbarion President, Chikako Yamakura, was in the same line. She thought it would be at 28,000 Yen without the Joy-Con grip and the dock. "They've packed those in anyway, and still had the price at ¥29,980. That's a fantastic value", she said.

Spike Chunsoft's Yuichiro Saito (the Danganronpa series' associate producer) also weighed in on the discussion: "I was surprised they kept the price in that range, considering it's got that huge screen and those two controllers. People are going to think, "With a price like that...!"," he told Famitsu.

Is the price cheap for what it is, or should it be lower/higher?