The Latest Victims of Trump’s Tariffs: Gamers
Then they came for the gamers: Nintendo is delaying preorders of the Switch 2 in the wake of Trump’s sweeping, unprecedented tariffs on the entire world. Experts, meanwhile, think the device’s high cost is a direct result of the company anticipating the devastating effect of tariffs.
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions. Nintendo will update timing at a later date,” Nintendo said in a statement from IGN. “The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.”
The Switch is manufactured in China and Vietnam, countries that Trump placed 34 percent and 46 percent tariffs on, respectively. The Switch 2 is perhaps the most anticipated gaming console release of the year, as the first iteration was the third-bestselling gaming console of all time.
Trump’s tariffs have gamers everywhere bracing for aggressive price increases. “There’s no doubt that Nintendo and Sony bumped prices higher initially to pre-empt potential tariffs,” Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad wrote on X. “They are indeed higher than expected, but I wouldn’t expect the % price increase to be exactly in-line with the tariff.
“When [graphics processing unit] prices increased in February that’s because tariffs on China were 10%. When they increased again in March that’s because they were 20%,” he continued. “Now they’re 54% for China and other Asia markets incl. Vietnam are 46%. Unless reversed, expect all gaming hardware to see jumps.”
Others speculated that Nintendo waited until the very last minute to decide on a price increase due to the intense uncertainty surrounding the tariffs.
“Nintendo appears to be building in a buffer against these potential trade barriers while ensuring they maintain their traditional positive margin on hardware,” NYU professor Joost van Dreunen told IGN. “My view is that they probably had a range of pricing for the U.S. market in play up until the last minute due to the uncertainty on import tariffs.”
This reinforces the very basic economic concept of tariffs being a tax on the consumer more than anything else. And when used as wantonly and spitefully as Trump is using them, the price of everything, everywhere, shoots up.