3mo ago

Will Tariffs Increase Switch 2's Price? Why The Console And Games Are So Expensive

www.gamespot.com

Mat Piscatella of Circana said this is an unprecedented and "chaotic" situation as it relates to tariffs and their impact on video games, so anyone claiming to know how things will shake out may be speaking out of turn.

"All anyone can do at this point is speculate. We are certainly in uncharted waters here, and no one really knows what will happen next," he told GameSpot. "Obviously, the announced tariffs are having an immediate impact on the financial markets. And given the haphazard nature of how the tariffs are being calculated and applied, uncertainty is really the only certain thing at the moment."

Piscatella said there is "absolutely the chance" that the new tariffs or any additional future tariffs might amount to changes for US consumer products, and not just for Nintendo but for all players.

47 comments

Trump Tariffs have nothing to do with the Switch 2 prices in Europe. Everybody incl. Nintendo is just hiking prices because they can.
- Switch prices have always been crazy. I only bought a switch because of my nephew and the fact that an almost 10 years old mario kart is still at full price is crazy. The way they try to push their paid dlc on kids is disgusting. The only reason they fer away with it because they are wholesome nintendo with quite a weird fan base
  
  an almost 10 years old mario kart is still at full price is crazy
  True but at least with physical media you can buy used.
- Because of inflation, not just “because they can”. USD$60 in 2016 is ~USD$80 in 2025 thanks to the Covid money printing years of inflation. That’s a near 33% increase in costs across the board from the last time they released a console and priced their products.
  As someone that grew up paying more for Atari games than I pay now for PC/console games, “GaMeRs” seem like the most pathetic crybabies who don’t understand much, especially economics.
  
  I'm no economist but I thought inflation was the measure of the cost increase over time not the cause of it.
  
  To be fair, most economics is purely 'because they can' with 'they' being shitheads in the owning class. if anything games (and most industries for that matter) should be going through a healthy period of deflation now (tariffs excluded) if not for said shitheads.
  
  This argument gets thrown around a lot but it fails to account for the fact that wages have been stagnant. So while it might cost similar with inflation, people are making less money by the same metric which still results in it being more expensive. Comparing it to prices of the 70's and 80's had the same problem as well as ignoring the difference in market scale video games have now.
  It's perfectly valid for people to be upset that they're being squeezed for something that they were excited for, especially since everyone's hurting right now.
I hope they are because there’s no damn way I’m spending $70+ on a video game, and since Nintendo never drops its game prices, I might as well just wait.
- No one is saying the current prices are due to tarrifs, there is however speculation that tarrifs may increase the price further.
  So, $80 game may be $90-100 with tariffs.
  
  And that should make me feel better about spending $80?
  
  If everything I've seen is true, then this explains the higher prices for physical over digital.
- Why not? Are games worth less now to you than they were a few years ago?
  Game prices don’t adjust for inflation every month/quarter/year like other products do, they tend to set a price and stick at it for an entire generation. Only in the last few years have we seen a few companies start breaking this tradition and start increasing prices mid-gen.
  As it is, gaming prices are still waaaaaaaaay cheaper than they should be given inflation over the last 30 years, especially when you take budgets into account where games used to cost $50k to make but now cost $300mill.
  
  It's not the same amount of money to an individual when it's a bigger percentage of their money. Wages haven't come close to matching inflation, so inflation has just lead to most people having to spend more on essentials and therefore having less.
If the tariffs do increase the price, it won't be a flat 25% increase or whatever the tariff is set to.
A misconception I keep seeing people incorrectly repeat is that a 25% tariff on an item I can buy at the store for $100 USD today, means tomorrow it will cost me $125. This is wrong, and not how tariffs work. If you see a price increase like that, that is price gouging, using a tariff as a shield. You are getting scammed.
The 25% tariff is based on whatever the imported cost of the item is, not the MSRP or final sale price. Lets just say for simplicity that the Switch 2 cost $100 for us to buy it. But, for a store to import the product, they buy it directly from Nintendo for a cost of just $35 USD per unit (again, for simplicity). A 25% tariff would be a tax of $7.50 USD that the store would need to pay per Switch console. In this hypothetical, a 25% tariff on that item would mean you would only expect to see a final price increase to $107.50 due to tariffs, and not a final price of $125.
Please be informed, don't let yourself be scammed.
- This is wrong, and not how tariffs work. If you see a price increase like that, that is price gouging, using a tariff as a shield. You are getting scammed
  so expect to see $100 items at $125, got it
  
  $135 for a game. Noted.
- don’t let yourself be scammed.
  When entire industries are forming informal cartels, there is little individual consumers can do. That's why antitrust authorities exist.
  
  Don't worry I'm sure they are working on getting rid of those too.
- Interesting. For games consoles, the markup for retail is probably like 10 percent or less. So the final price in your example would be between 122.50 and 125 anyway, right?
  *Also, my source on the 10% is a random Reddit commenter so take that with a grain of salt
- Correct, tariffs are not a consumption tax. That fact doesn't mean prices will not increase, nor does it mean that small increases don't have a big impact. We, the common people, will have have to go about our lives with less. Maybe wear your shirts an extra day because laundering more regularly consumes more soap. Perhaps it's going without avocado on your lunch sandwiches. You'll still have shirts and sandwiches, but you certainly wouldn't be as clean or as filled. (See the "surplus" chapter of your high-school/undergrad econ books.)
  
  Yes, the prices go up, but not like how people seem to be normalizing. The price increase is generally only likely to be noticeable on items where stores sell at an incredibly tiny profit margin.
  A 10% tariff does not mean a 10% MSRP price increase, it means an increase but of a lot less. But people are I guess not intelligent or informed enough to know this and so incorrectly say a 10% tariff means a 10% MSRP price increase, which again, is wrong.
Everyone talks about inflation but the reality is that people's incomes generally have not risen to match it, so while I understand inflation, I also understand that I'm not actually making more money to offset it.
- Declining real wages are an issue in the US predominantly, most is just stagnant but it also depends on how dependent you are on energy and how well did your country do to help out citizens with rising energy costs. There are also countries where real wages continued to grow consistently even through the pandemic.
I don't really understand US politics but this tariffs thing seems stupid to me. What are the pros?
- The theory is that it's supposed to encourage internal economic growth via domestic production of goods by making foreign made goods much more expensive. What the orange dip shit failed to understand is that America doesn't have the internal infrastructure or resources needed to create most of the goods they consume. This is basically just a tax on the US consumer that ruined a lot of international trade deals and caused an irreversible decline in confidence with American markets.
  
  And there's no reason to produce those things here either, labor just costs too much.
  
  I think there are people in the US who wanted tariffs because it could bring some jobs and they are not that concerned with economic consequences because their lives are so bad already.
- 💪🔥🇺🇸🦅💰🔥 <—That’s it, that’s the plan. Got it from the ultra maga patriot economists ONLY group chat 🔫 😎🎆
Im really hoping the pricing already had the fed govts fafo priced in
- I think they might have a bit, but I dont think anyone was quite expecting this. I think prices may go up before release if tariffs aren't changed. I could see the console being $500.
Was wondering about this but I figured Japanese consoles probably have components from China and Taiwan and are finished in Japan, so maybe US tariffs won’t affect the price at all?
- It's likely foxconn
Why are they “so expensive”? Inflation. Rampant inflation for the last 5 years.
When you look at the gaming industry, prices have stayed basically static for the last 30 years, way out of step with regular inflation. Inflation at the target of like 3% means games and consoles should cost 3% more every year.
the world is on fire and people care about a videogame console

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