Nintendo’s new console is manufactured in countries under heavy tariffs from Trump.
Nintendo’s new console is manufactured in countries under heavy tariffs from Trump.
Apr 3, 2025, 9:04 AM UTC
President Trump Holds “Make America Wealthy Again Event” In White House Rose Garden
President Trump Holds “Make America Wealthy Again Event” In White House Rose Garden
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor.
Nintendo revealed its Switch 2 in full yesterday, just hours before Trump took to the White House Rose Garden for his own launch: his latest, and largest, round of tariffs yet. Unfortunately for Nintendo, the tariffs hit the countries where it builds its consoles, with new rates of up to 49 percent that it may pass on to US buyers.
The company is in this position in part because it had to adapt to Trump’s trade policy before. Its manufacturing was heavily based in China until Trump’s first term, when the combination of tariffs on China, the covid pandemic, and later, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, created supply chain upheaval. That prompted Nintendo to diversify, and according to the Financial Times, more than half of its US hardware is now manufactured in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Nintendo’s problem is that those are among the countries hit hardest by Trump’s new “reciprocal” tariffs, which apply in addition to existing rates. Yesterday China was hit by an extra 34 percent tariff on its exports to the US, Vietnam by an extra 46 percent, and Cambodia by an extra 49 percent.
But will everyday Americans be the ones to pay the price of the new rates? Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research on the impact of tariffs on China during Trump’s first term found that “US consumers of imported goods have borne the brunt of the tariffs through higher prices,” with manufacturers and exporters passing almost the entirety of the price increase to the end consumer.
When the Switch 2 launches on June 5th, it will cost $449.99. Applying some back-of-the-napkin math, if we treat the new tariffs as averaging out around 40 percent, that equates to an extra $180 — leaving a possible final price of $630. Apply the same logic to games, with Mario Kart World already set to cost $79.99, and you get a final price over $110. Use the worst case rate — Cambodia’s 49 percent tariff — and the numbers jump to $670 and $120.
The good news is that there are a few factors that might mitigate the effect. The first is that Nintendo might well have priced some of this in already. The company didn’t know what Trump’s tariffs would be exactly, but it knew something was coming, and may well have included that consideration into its choice to set the Switch 2 at $449.99 — that’s 50 percent more than the $299.99 original Switch.
The second is that there’s evidence Nintendo has planned for this in a different way, by stockpiling hardware in the US. The Financial Times reports that the company has already imported “hundreds of thousands” of consoles to the US to get ahead of the tariffs, with 383,000 units across five days in January alone. That’s a lot, but the first Switch sold 4.8 million units in the US during its first nine months on sale, so there’s no guarantee that Nintendo’s early imports will be enough to get the company through its first holiday season without feeling the need for a price hike.
Finally, there’s an important caveat to all of this: we don’t know what’s actually going to happen with the tariffs. They’re supposed to go into effect soon, with a global 10 percent tariff starting April 5th, and the elevated rates on April 9th, but Trump’s administration is nothing if not unpredictable — and transactional. This could be a bluff, an opening gambit to start negotiations, or an empty threat, and there’s every chance that tariffs will be either delayed or altered before Nintendo ever pays a cent.
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