The same Nintendo Switch 2 costs $128 more at some Lebanese shops

I built LebTech to answer one question: where is this cheaper? Every night it reads the websites of the shops we track and writes down their prices. It's good with numbers and bad with fine print, so for this one we didn't trust it.

We took every Nintendo Switch 2 console listing we had on 23 October, 30 listings at 28 shops, and opened the pages at both ends of the price range by hand.

The short version

The plain Switch 2, with no game included, cost $441 at the cheapest shop and $569 at the most expensive one. That's $128 for the same box.

The $441 is at ITWorks Lebanon, and it's a sale price. Their regular price is $540. The $569 is a sale price too, down from $619. On a week without sales the gap would likely be wider.

Two of the "Switch 2" listings weren't the console

Two listings were titled just "Nintendo Switch 2". When we opened them, both were the Mario Kart World bundle, the console plus the game. That's a different product and it should cost more. Our system had grouped them with the plain console, which stretched the range up to $610. We took them out of this comparison, and catching bundles whose title doesn't say "bundle" is now on our list to fix.

The bundles we saw were priced from $538 to $610. If you want Mario Kart World anyway, compare bundle against bundle, and read what's in the box on the page. The title won't always tell you.

Read the VAT line

Most shops in Lebanon price in dollars with VAT included. A few show the price before VAT and add 11% at checkout. One shop listed the console at $499, which comes to about $554 once VAT is added. Both numbers are on the page, but only one of them is what you pay.

Before you buy one

• Check whether the price includes VAT. If the page doesn't say, ask.
• Make sure you're looking at the console alone or the bundle, whichever you actually want.
• Ask which warranty comes with it and who honors it. Shops sell the same console with different warranties.
• Look at the date. Both ends of this range were sale prices, and sales end.