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Extra Nintendo Switch dock costs £80 (Eurogamer)

Don't worry, a Nintendo avatar will be along soon to explain how it's actually a great deal

with a built in USB-C -> 3x USB-A + HDMI hub (compareable one on amazon, ~$ 30)
that also comes with a USB-C charger (compareable one on Amazon ~$ 20, original Nintendo one $30)
that also comes with a HDMI cable. (... well, ok ... like 2 bucks?)

Is it priced at a premium? maybe.
Is it 'a crappy piece of plastic' ... nope.


Well, that didn't take long.

We had a cheaper version in the States on Nintendo's website, because it didn't come with another charger.

Still, my dock feels so flimsy that I dread the day I have to replace it.
 
Look up samsung dex dock for samsung galaxy s8.
150 bucks.

Its an hdmi usbc dock. With an extra fan woop de doo.
Sadly screwing over costumers with accesories is common practice.
 
Div nae talk shite, man!

For 1 penny less you can buy an Amazon Fire TV box.

For that you get;

  • the box - which has 2gb memory, 8 core processor, a gpu, wifi, 4K hdmi out
  • The Power supply
  • HDMI cable
  • Remote control with voice control

Jesus, in a thread where people think "sales price should be determined by component cost alone", where people conveniently ignore that - while it's still priced at a premium, par for the course for Nintendo accessories - you're getting more than just the "cheap piece of plastic", the comparison to an Amazon Fire Box must be the weirdest argument.

You do know Amazon is selling these pretty much at a 0 margin because they want to make a profit off the content people consume with these boxes, right?
 
I doubt he's shitting you. You just basically claimed a hunk of plastic is impossible to sell below $60.
No, I didn't.

I said at £80 there's no fucking way they have a profit margin of £60.

Accessories are high margin for the producer, but they're also high margin for the retailer as well. The retailer margin on a product like this, plus various other costs, and of course material costs and manufacturing, is absolutely going to eclipse £20, ergo there's no way in hell Nintendo is getting a £60/unit profit margin.
 
Jesus, in a thread where people think "sales price should be determined by component cost alone", where people conveniently ignore that - while it's still priced at a premium, par for the course for Nintendo accessories - you're getting more than just the "cheap piece of plastic", the comparison to an Amazon Fire Box must be the weirdest argument.

You do know Amazon is selling these pretty much at a 0 margin because they want to make a profit off the content people consume with these boxes, right?

I agree. The Nintendo™ Switch Dock is very competitive in price and offers great value. If anything, Nintendo™ should be charging more for the Nintendo™ Switch Dock. At a low price of £80.00 RRP this is also daylight robbery!
 
I agree. The Nintendo™ Switch Dock is very competitive in price and offers great value. If anything, Nintendo™ should be charging more for the Nintendo™ Switch Dock. At a low price of £80.00 RRP this is also daylight robbery!
They could experiment and price it at $250. That will help push the sales of Switch.
 
Jesus, in a thread where people think "sales price should be determined by component cost alone", where people conveniently ignore that - while it's still priced at a premium, par for the course for Nintendo accessories - you're getting more than just the "cheap piece of plastic", the comparison to an Amazon Fire Box must be the weirdest argument.

You do know Amazon is selling these pretty much at a 0 margin because they want to make a profit off the content people consume with these boxes, right?

You said it's priced at what it is because of the electrics, not the box. I'm telling you what you can get for £80 in a shitty plastic box. Consumers do not look at possible mark up, they look at value for money. What they will see is a shitty piece of plastic with HDMI and power through.

Just because Amazon choose to sell fire products at cost plus tax, it doesn't mean that Nintendo have a free pass to sell theirs at cost plus several 100% mark up. Take your colours off and use your brain.
 
I agree. The Nintendo™ Switch Dock is very competitive in price and offers great value. If anything, Nintendo™ should be charging more for the Nintendo™ Switch Dock. At a low price of £80.00 RRP this is also daylight robbery!
Thank you for this helpful post, fellow consumer. I also enjoy that Nintendo© chose this low price for the Nintendo© Switch™ dock which improves my Nintendo© Switch™ gameplaying experience by a lot.
 
Nintendo is always overpriced.

Pretty much with everything they sell.

I always wait for drops until it's remotely worth it for me.
 
Nintendo is always overpriced.

Pretty much with everything they sell.

I always wait for drops until it's remotely worth it for me.
I doubt it will ever drop in price. It's highly unlikely this will be a high-volume SKU, and Nintendo definitely doesn't plan it to be. Production runs will be low enough that it won't be price cut, and this isn't a product Nintendo themselves would officially drop the price of to move units.
 
I've hired round the clock security to ensure nothing happens to my dock.

One big move Nintendo is making with the Switch is peripherals. Pro Controller, more joy cons, adapters, chargers etc. Nintendo didn't really have this revenue stream in the Wii U era. It's not like you could buy an extra Gamepad. There were pro controllers, but they weren't a necessity like they are with the Switch. I can also see a lot of people buying an extra pair of joy cons just so they have four. Nintendo has also been aggressive with releasing colors and special editions. The Wii U Pro Controller came in black and white, but we are already getting a myriad of different joy cons and pro controller colors. Nintendo is definitely trying to maximize profits from each and every Switch user.

Whaling has been a big part of Nintendo's strategy for a while.
 
Absolutely overpriced, but this is Nintendo and they will capitalize on overpricing accessories just like Sony and Microsoft because its extra profit for them.

I've also never seen them come out with special editions of their controllers so damn quickly - they know that customers will buy them in a heartbeat.
 
Absolutely overpriced, but this is Nintendo and they will capitalize on overpricing accessories just like Sony and Microsoft because its extra profit for them.

I've also never seen them come out with special editions of their controllers so damn quickly - they know that customers will buy them in a heartbeat.

Joycons present a pretty unique opportunity for that, in that fans were clamoring for special editions the second the console was announced. The Switch is designed pretty heavily around selling loads of different accessories and different editions of accessories. It's very smart from a business perspective, especially in the gaming industry when accessories have always been ripoffs.
 
Yeah but we need the weekly thread to say the dock is just plastic and plastic shouldn't cost $90. Ignore market, electronics or other factors.

Ignorance is a bliss for sure....people love to live in their own world. Those "its just plastic" arguments are ridiculous considering this could be said for pretty much everything.

According to GAF Switch is/was too expensive, Pro Controller is/was too expensive, Dock is/was too expensive - but when those items sell out again people will say that Nintendo undershipping/not producing enough.

The dock is too expensive for me right now...its obv. a premium Accessoire and i will survive without an extra Dock unless i can get one on sale or something.
 
Ignorance is a bliss for sure....people love to live in their own world. Those "its just plastic" arguments are ridiculous considering this could be said for pretty much everything.

According to GAF Switch is/was too expensive, Pro Controller is/was too expensive, Dock is/was too expensive - but when those items sell out again people will say that Nintendo undershipping/not producing enough.

The dock is too expensive for me right now...its obv. a premium Accessoire and i will survive without an extra Dock unless i can get one on sale or something.

Nothing about the dock is premium. It is a plastic shell with a little chip inside it with a USB-C connector. It's also so poorly designed that it can scuff the screen of the Switch.
 
Nothing about the dock is premium. It is a plastic shell with a little chip inside it with a USB-C connector. It's also so poorly designed that it can scuff the screen of the Switch.

The price is premium and the target audience are people who are willing to spend nearly 100 bucks for it - thats premium for me, since its priced outside of the standard price range.
 
Its pretty expensive, yes.. but that's not at all surprising. Do people also expect to be paying for the actual ingredients when buying a pizza..? Speaking for myself, I would "happily" pay the price of a new one if mine broke since I'm enjoying my switch so much. I hope they make a slight redesign eventually though, I'm sure the way you connect your switch with the dock can be improved upon. And yes, a little bit cheaper would also be nice.
 
I doubt it will ever drop in price. It's highly unlikely this will be a high-volume SKU, and Nintendo definitely doesn't plan it to be. Production runs will be low enough that it won't be price cut, and this isn't a product Nintendo themselves would officially drop the price of to move units.

Isn't this the exact same dock that comes with the switch? How will there be low production if they're manufacturing at least 1 for every console sold?
 
Isn't this the exact same dock that comes with the switch? How will there be low production if they're manufacturing at least 1 for every console sold?
I'm not exactly sure why those units are relevant in this instance. If you need me to be more specific though, I expect number of Switch docks produced in excess of units packaged as a bundle with the system itself, and sold as a separate SKU, to be sufficiently low enough that retailers won't be cutting the price at any point, and Nintendo is unlikely to cut the price themselves to move more units, as it's not intended to be a high volume product to begin with.
 
Nothing about the dock is premium. It is a plastic shell with a little chip inside it with a USB-C connector. It's also so poorly designed that it can scuff the screen of the Switch.

A) Compare it to other brand name USB-C docks as seen in this thread and you'll see it's not that different. USB-C stuff is very expensive still.

B) The dock cannot scratch your screen unless the dock is damaged. One could argue that the ability for it to be damaged is poor design, but that depends on how many actually are damaged. It seems like a very, very small amount of units are actually bent/warped and able to scratch the screen.

I honestly don't get the drama.
Accessories are almost always overpriced, how can that be surprising?

Yup, this is news to nobody. Not sure why it's such a big deal when literally all brand name electronics accessories exist to price gouge.
 
Would rather buy another switch considering cost of joycons and dock are basically like. 220 CaD in itself. Half way there..

I'm assuming AC adapter is included.

Anyways also get another grip which is an extra $30. The grip should be included with the joy cons. Everything is overpriced
 
Ive always said youre better off buying another Switch with these ridiculous accessory prices.
 
Lots of Nintendo shitting once again, without any facts to support them.

Then the people who present facts and say that the price is on par with similar products are shat upon...

This is truly NeoGAF... Y'all must be huge Trump fans with this alternative fact thing going on...
 
I thought we had solved the confusion over the dock pricing by the 2nd thread... How does this keep coming up?

Because there is reasonable sticker shock of the MSRP for the second dock versus its perceived value.

This is reinforced when you factor in the MSRP of a set of Joy-Cons & Grip and you end up with a Switch tablet "price" in the ~$110 range, which stretches reasonableness. This encourages the comments that buying a second Switch isn't a "bad idea" if you want a second dock and set of Joy Cons.*

Others reply with a breakdown of component costs (which I have done in prior threads) to try and explain that USB-C technology isn't cheap and that MSRP for the similar components on the dock ends up in the $70-80 range.

The end result is that you have people talking past one another.

The reality is that the Switch dock set (dock, HDMI cable, USB-C AC adapter) isn't terribly priced for what it is compared to other similar components in the computer or mobile device realm, but that doesn't make it a good deal for most customers*.

*I'm one of those customers who is considering a second Switch instead of just a second dock. If Nintendo announces cloud saves at E3 so that I can move the other players saves to their own system, I'm in. Otherwise I'll wait for a deal to show up on the dock set.
 
Apart from making a highly complex process extremely simple and seamless? Nothing. Just a worthless plastic board.

While we're at it, why are routers so expensive when I can just run a $5 cable from my modem to my PC?

They're not, you can get fully functional routers for $20 and less brand new. Exotic esoteric routers with USB NAS functionality, 20 antennas, and borderline experimental wifi standards are expensive.
 
It strikes me that an extra dock for £80 could be really useful for a person who acquires the Switch handheld unit by robbing someone. Is there any way the Switch can be password protected in case this happens?
 
Highly complex process? Yeah lol okay. And you can easily get a router for a third of the cost of this piece of shit.

You could, but why would you. I don't want anything to do with a <$30 router. I also don't want anything to do with a $15 USB-C charger. But that's just me.

From what I can tell, USB-C hubs with HDMI outs run anywhere from $25.00 and up. Most are around $50. That doesn't include a charger or an HDMI cable. SO let's just say $25 for the charger and $10 for the cable. Add that to the $50 for the hub and you get $85. None of these prices are that outrageous and yet they add up to close to what Nintendo is charging for the dock kit.

Look, would I prefer that the dock was cheaper? Yes, I would. Am I outraged that Nintendo has priced it like they have. No, I'm not.
 
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