Paul David Nuñez February 4th, 2025 - 2:49 PM
Over the weekend, President Trump signed an order that will impose stiff tariffs on imports from Canada, China, and Mexico. Trump declared an economic emergency in order to place duties of 10% on all importants from China and 25% from Mexico and China. If these tariffs are sustained, it would cause inflation to worsen significantly threatening the trust that many voters placed in Trump to lower the prices of groceries, gasoline, housing, autos and other goods as he promised. This would include the rise of prices within the video game industry for both software and hardware. Following the announcement, the ESA, which represents several major video game companies, including Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Epic Games, and Electronic Arts, have released a statement talking about the potential dangers to the industry.
Entertainment Software Association warns Trump tariffs will bring “significant harm” to US developers and playershttps://t.co/wZ1xWAA62l
— GamesIndustry (@GIBiz) February 4, 2025
The ESA statement reads:
“Video games are one of the most popular and beloved forms of entertainment for Americans of all ages. Tariffs on video game devices and related products would negatively impact hundreds of millions of Americans and would harm the industry’s significant contributions to the U.S. economy. We look forward to working with the Administration and Congress to find ways to sustain the economic growth supported by our sector.”
China tariff impact on Switch 2 launch in the US? Zero.
When Trump had his first term …Nintendo with Hosiden decided to try and get to 50% of production from Vietnam. So Vietnam production will supply to the US and China etc will supply to the rest of the world. Smart.— David Gibson (@gibbogame) February 2, 2025
Financial analysts have noted how the tariffs could impact the industry such as the launch of Nintendo Switch 2. MST Financial Senior Analyst David Gibson explained how the tariffs in China wouldn’t impact the Switch 2 release but tariffs on Vietnam would impact the launch.
Now obviously if tariffs go onto Vietnam imports to the US then that changes the outcome. PS5 not so lucky but Sony might to scale up non-China production to help solve the problem.
— David Gibson (@gibbogame) February 2, 2025
