Bad news for Nintendo fans in the US who planned to preorder the Switch 2 on April 9: The company is delaying purchases for the console “in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.” Although the launch date, June 5, remains the same, Nintendo says it will update preorder timing “at a later date.”
It’s an unprecedented move from any console maker, and a direct response to Wednesday’s news that President Donald Trump would institute sweeping tariffs; already the stock market has plummeted, prices on important goods are expected to rise, and the tech industry is reeling. Nintendo announced preorders for the console alongside its first event debuting the console to the press—the same day news of Trump’s tariffs hit.
The depth and breadth of the tariffs have been shocking, says video game analyst Mat Piscatella of market research firm Circana. “My best guess would be that Nintendo had some assumptions in place at what the tariffs would likely be, and that the announced tariffs came in much higher with wider reach than anticipated,” Piscatella tells WIRED.
It’s unclear whether the price of the Switch 2—$450, a tag that has already been upsetting to some fans—could rise even further. Piscatella says it’s not an impossibility. “Every reasonable and responsible business that relies on international supply chains will be reevaluating its US pricing at this point,” he says. “They have to.”
There’s been a great deal of speculation from industry analysts and institutions like the Entertainment Software Association about how harmful Trump’s tariffs would be to the video game market and industry. In February, the ESA issued a statement that tariffs would “negatively impact hundreds of millions of Americans and would harm the industry’s significant contributions to the US economy.” Nintendo’s announcement on Friday underscores just how disruptive the tariffs could end up being.
Piscatella says that historically other territories have been subjected to higher video game pricing already and “the US could certainly be joining that group.”
“The haphazard and chaotic nature of the tariffs and their announcement obviously has many scrambling to navigate the fallout,” Piscatella says.
