Why Trump’s tariffs probably won’t cause an immediate Switch 2 price bump

[Update: Shortly after this story was published, Trump announced a 90-day pause on his recently introduced tariffs with most US trading partners. The pause does not apply to China, however, which Trump says will see tariffs increased to 125 percent.]

Last week, Nintendo made the unprecedented move of delaying US Switch 2 preorders to "assess" the impact of Donald Trump's massive tariffs on the countries where the console is produced. That move has left many wondering if the company may be mulling a last-minute increase in the Switch 2's $450 asking price to account for those import taxes.

While industry analysts think that kind of immediate price increase is unlikely, they warn that Trump's tariffs could have longer-term impacts on Switch 2 pricing and supplies in the US for years to come.

Already baked in

DFC Intelligence CEO David Cole, for instance, said in a recent analyst note that the company is currently modeling "a 20 percent price increase over the next two years" across all video game hardware thanks to "broader macroeconomic challenges." In the case of the Switch 2, though, Cole clarified that "we believe much of the 20 percent increase was already baked into the $450 price," which Nintendo is "not likely" to raise at this point.

Other game industry analysts similarly don't expect Nintendo to announce a price bump so soon after its initial pricing announcement. "I believe it is now too late for Nintendo to drive up the price further, if that ever was an option in the first place," Kantan Games' Dr. Serkan Toto told GamesIndustry.biz. "As far as tariffs go, Nintendo was looking at a black box all the way until April 2, just like everybody else. As a hardware manufacturer, Nintendo most likely ran simulations to get to a price that would make them tariff-proof as much as possible."

Speaking to NPR, though, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser said the $450 US price for the console was "made based on previous tariffs, and there was no impact from previous tariffs on [that] pricing." Regarding the tariffs Trump announced last Wednesday—just hours after Nintendo's own pricing announcement—Bowser said that "much like every other company, I think, in the US right now, we're in the process of actively assessing what the impact may be."