I wonder if Nintendo of Europe is screwing over it's consumers yet again, because that's not what I'm seeing here.
At least for the UK, Nintendo are just doing a conversion of the US price + 20% (vat). In the case of the console itself (£280) our pre-tax price is actually cheaper than then NA pre-tax price.
The conversion from $ to £ is actually resonable, the price is just wrong for the UK market. Nintendo should have used "regional" prices based on the market it will be selling in & competing in, rather than just a conversion. Setting regional prices rather than just a direct conversion is something companies are quite fond of when it goes their way (more money for them).
Comparing the two console prices is ridiculous because one has been around for some years and one hasn't even released yet.
It's not if they are competing in the same market.
If the switch was a new gen (hardware wise) and was a step ahead of the other consoles then fine, but it's not. Graphically it won't surpass the ps4/xbone and it costs more.
Ok, so those are older consoles, fine, but at the end of the day
£220= PS4. Massive back catalogue, huge 3rd party support.
£280= Switch. New console, small catalogue, questionable 3rd party support.
No one is going to look at that and say yeah, but it's newer, fantastic deal. Like it or not, Nintendo are competing in the same market place as the ps4/xbone, charging what they are while claming "it's new" isn't going to convince anyone it's better buy, unless you're a Nintendo fan and well, we saw how just keeping the small loyal Nintendo fanbase worked out for them with the WiiU.