I figured out how much each Nintendo handheld would cost if it launched today

Around this time last year, you couldn’t scroll through social media for long without seeing complaints surrounding the $449.99 price point of the Nintendo Switch 2. Admittedly, it did come as a bit of a shock, and to make matters worse, Nintendo is boosting the price of the hybrid console later this year, up to $499.99. It did make me wonder, though. If you adjusted every handheld or hybrid Nintendo console from the Japanese gaming giant’s history for inflation, would the Switch 2 still seem quite as expensive? Well, I decided to find out.

Now, for the rules. I’ve based my decision on which consoles to include on whether they require their own type of cartridge or not. For example, the Game Boy to Game Boy Color is a real upgrade, as they use different cartridges, whereas the Game Boy Advance to GBA SP isn’t, as the game format didn’t change. Also, these prices are adjusted for inflation as of July 2026, so if you’re reading this months from now, the figures might be a little bit different – in that case, blame the economy, not me.

Game Boy

• Launch price: $89.95 (1989)
• Adjusted-for-inflation price: $242.25

Nintendo’s original handheld launched for $89.95, which might not seem like a lot, but this was 1989. For context, not a single member of the Pocket Tactics team was born in 1989. That’s how long ago it was. It should come as no surprise, then, that, accounting for inflation, the Game Boy today would cost around $240. Yes, you read that right.

In fairness, context is pretty important here, and in 1989, the Game Boy was a futuristic piece of kit, and it famously came bundled with Tetris. It’s also worth noting that Nintendo was helped by the launch of the Atari Lynx in the same year, which was almost double the price of the Game Boy at $179.99. Essentially, while the price seems anything but reasonable now, at the time, there was no established handheld market to draw comparisons from.

Game Boy Color

• Launch price: $79.95 (1998)
• Adjusted-for-inflation price: $163.80

Here it is, folks, our winner. Adjusted for inflation, the Game Boy Color is Nintendo’s cheapest handheld console ever at $163.80, with an original launch price of $79.95. For context, that means the Switch 2’s updated price of $499.99, effective as of September, is more expensive than the equivalent of three Game Boy Colors. It was great value at the time, and if it launched now, it’d still be pretty great value. That’s really all there is to it.

Annoyingly, all official numbers lump the GBC together with the GB, despite the latter having its own type of cartridge – Nintendo clearly doesn’t share my methodology – which makes it harder to gauge. Still, the combined sales tot up to around 118.69 million units. Given that the Game Boy Color did the heavy lifting from its 1998 launch until the introduction of the GBA in 2001, plus the fact that the GBC-exclusive Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal sold a combined total of over 30 million copies, there’s no doubt that the Color was a significant success for Nintendo.

Game Boy Advance

• Launch price: $99.99 (2001)
• Adjusted-for-inflation price: $188.65

In second place, as the cheapest Nintendo handheld or hybrid console adjusted for inflation after the GBC, it’s the Game Boy Advance. The story is pretty straightforward here: it was affordable then, and if it were re-released in 2026, it’d still be pretty affordable, rivaling the prices of some of the Android picks from our guide to the best retro handhelds. You really don’t get much for under $200 these days.

While we’re technically not counting it as its own individual console, the Game Boy Advance SP was similarly affordable. It launched for $99.99 in 2003, arriving two years after the original model. Simply put, there was never a cheaper time to be a Nintendo-loving gamer than from 1998 through until about 2023, and better still, most of the best GBA games were similarly reasonable, retailing for around $30 to $35.

Nintendo DS

• Launch price: $149.99 (2004)
• Adjusted-for-inflation price: $265.16

Following on from the relatively affordable Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS is where we started to see prices creep back up again. Admittedly, it makes sense that the GBA was cheaper than the DS, as the technological leap between the two was pretty seismic, with the latter having two displays, one of which was touch-screen, and a built-in battery and backlight. Sure, the GBA SP had those two latter features, but the brightness and battery life didn’t hold a candle to what the DS offered, and the best DS games, such as Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! And Cooking Mama made the most of the hardware.

Despite the higher price, the Nintendo DS was an absolute profit monster for Nintendo, and it took the similarly popular Nintendo Switch nine years to beat its staggering 154.02 million sales total. It’s worth noting, though, that a lot of those sales actually came from 2006’s Nintendo DS Lite, which Nintendo introduced to the market at $129.99 – which would be in the region of around $215 today.

Nintendo 3DS

• Launch price: $249.99 (2011)
• Adjusted-for-inflation price: $371.14
• Relaunch price: $169.99 (2011)
• Adjusted-for-inflation relaunch price: $252.37

Okay, so the 3DS is a tricky one. On launch, it was $249.99, or around $371.14 adjusted for inflation, making it Nintendo’s most expensive purely handheld console by some distance. That’s by no means the full story, though.

Following under five months of disappointing sales, Nintendo slashed the price of the DS successor by a whopping $80, making it a much more reasonable proposition while bringing it in line with the gentler pricing curve that it had maintained since the arrival of the Game Boy Color a decade and a half earlier. It still wasn’t enough to push the 3DS into the upper echelons of Nintendo’s console sales charts, but it didn’t help that the early 2010s marked something of a fallow period for the gaming giant, thanks in part to the weirdness that was the Nintendo Wii U.

Nintendo Wii U

• Launch price: $299.99 (2012)
• Adjusted-for-inflation price: $436.35

Ah, the Wii U, Nintendo’s biggest failure of the 21st century. The Wii U had a lot going against it, from its peculiar naming convention to its underwhelming launch lineup, but the biggest factor might have been the cost. At the time, it was more expensive than both the PS3 and Xbox 360, and unlike the original Wii U’s motion-control gimmick, the hybrid console didn’t do enough to persuade potential users to break the bank to pick one up.

In terms of its adjusted-for-inflation price, the Wii U is the second most expensive hybrid or handheld console we’ve ever seen from Nintendo, beaten only by the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025. The Switch 2 can at least use the excuse of confusing regulations and tariffs around the time of its launch, though. As for the Wii U, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t really know what Nintendo was thinking.

Nintendo Switch

• Launch price: $299.99 (2017)
• Adjusted-for-inflation price: $408.71

Having learned from its mistakes with the Wii U, Nintendo launched the Switch five years later and at the same $299.99 price point. By 2017, though, we’d seen the introduction of the PS4 and the Xbox One, each of which cost upwards of $399 and $499, respectively, making the Switch look like an absolute bargain. It should come as no surprise, then, that as of mid-2026, the Switch is Nintendo’s best-selling console of all time, with some of the best Switch games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, also shifting massive numbers.

Funnily enough, though, the Switch doesn’t seem like quite so much of a steal when adjusted for inflation, coming in at shy of $50 cheaper than the Switch 2 on launch. Again, this is pretty context-dependent, as the high prices of both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 made the original Switch look pretty affordable by comparison. With that in mind, it’s no wonder the Switch is still a top pick from our guide to the best handheld consoles.

Nintendo Switch 2

• Launch price: $449.99
• September 2026 price: $499.99

Okay, so this probably won’t come as much of a shock. Even after adjusting the price of every other handheld or hybrid Nintendo console for inflation, the Nintendo Switch 2 comes out as the most expensive. Admittedly, its launch price was less than $20 more expensive than that of the Wii U, adjusted for inflation, which doesn’t sound so bad. However, an upcoming price hike in September is slightly rubbing salt in the wound of anyone who was holding out for a discount or sale to pick up a Switch 2.

However, there are some factors we need to account for here. For a start, the recent price hike is the result of wider industry conditions, most notably the rising cost of components, which has also seen the Steam Deck OLED and other gaming handhelds soar in price. Secondly, the Switch 2 arrived right in the middle of international confusion surrounding the Trump administration’s approach to tariffs.

So, what have we learned here? Handheld and hybrid consoles have hardly ever been super cheap, perhaps except for the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. Still, there’s a definite curve in the price of Nintendo’s handhelds over the years, even if you adjust every one for inflation. It does make me think how much scope there is for future price hikes, especially ahead of the confirmed Switch 2 one in September of this year, but at this point, Nintendo still seems to have plenty of goodwill in the gaming community.