Here’s When the Nintendo Switch Will Launch in China

The Nintendo Switch is coming to China, and its release date isn’t far away. Nintendo announced this week that the hybrid console will release in China on December 10th thanks to a partnership with Tencent, the company with connections to many massive publishers and game studios. It’ll launch for RMB 2,099 which comes in at around $300 and will see more games released for the platform in the future from developers in China as well as localized titles.

An official press release on Nintendo’s site confirmed the plans to release the Nintendo Switch in China next week as well as the price and the agreement between Nintendo and Tencent. Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad shared updates from the event where the information was disclosed and said New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe would be bundled with the console as a demo version.

Third-party games both from China and from developers overseas will be ported to the Nintendo Switch in China with studios like Bandai Namco, Konami, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and Sega listed as ones who will see their games release there. Ubisoft itself shared a video that showed several of its games that’ll be releasing in China including Rabbids: Adventure Party which is currently an exclusive to China.

Ahmad noted that the Switch has technically been available in China since 2017 when people chose to import the console and its games into the country. China has precise regulations pertaining to the approval of new games and systems in the country, though the partnership between Nintendo and Tencent will hopefully streamline the process of having games released there on Nintendo’s platform.

There was no announcement during the event about the Switch Lite releasing in the country, though we can likely expect to hear more games being announced for releases in China as studios develop or port them there.