Given that President Donald Trump’s worldwide tariffs were announced just hours after the reveal of the pricey Nintendo Switch 2, the immediate question was how that hardware specifically would be affected by the move.
Now, things are evolving quickly. Nintendo has just announced that it will be delaying the planned April 9 pre-order date for the Switch 2 in the US, and there is no announced date when they will go live instead. Here’s the statement:
“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 said in a statement provided to Polygon. “Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.”
The price of the Switch 2 was revealed as $449 this week, $150 more than the original Switch and $50 more than the mostly expected price of $400. Experts seemed to agree that the price would likely not change as a result of the tariffs, or possibly even that the assumption of coming tariffs raised the price ahead of time, but we have no confirmation of that.
The actual tariffs include 24% slapped on Japan and 46% on Vietnam, where Nintendo now has moved some production of its hardware and components. This is more complicated than prices going up a known percent in the US, which may or may not happen, but the system already costs around $130 more than its equivalent in Japan.
As for the “evolving market conditions” that includes massive drops in the DOW and NASDAQ in the US, nearly 1,500 points in each of the last two days so far. Japan’s Nikkei is down nearly a thousand points itself today. In short, the entire global trade system is currently up in the air due to the unprecedented moves by the US government.
This is a pressing situation for Nintendo specifically given that the Switch 2’s release is just two months away. They are already dealing with extremely upset consumers, mostly pushing back on its $80 price (more in some regions) for Mario Kart World, a bump that we have not seen across AAA games in the industry, but there is some concern this may now open the door for that.
These tariffs are bound to affect more than just Nintendo of course, as Xbox and PS5 production is in Asia, plus gaming PC components on top of that. But the Nintendo situation is different with its price points announced literally the day the tariffs went live, and this imminent launch of a console that can no longer be pre-ordered by what is likely to be its biggest market. To say everyone’s scrambling is something of an understatement.
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