After months of back-and-forth and delays, Trump's tariffs have finally hit a major piece of gaming hardware: the Nintendo Switch 2, which is due to launch June 5, 2025.
It's only a delay on the pre-order not release date, but this is the first major delay of its kind in the wake of recent tariffs and likely paints a pretty dark picture about rising prices of gaming hardware in the near future.
In a statement issued to IGN and echoed on GameStop's social, Nintendo has stated "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 will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged."
Those outside of the US can still get their pre-orders in but, though our standing consumer advice is always to avoid pre-ordering hardware before any independent reviews are live, this delay is more indicative of the expected higher pricing Trump's tariffs presage.
The MSRP of the Nintendo Switch 2 on the US website still sits at $450 MSRP for the standard edition and $500 for the Mario Kart World Tour edition that comes with the $80 game. However, this comes with the caveat that this is the suggested price, not the actual price. If a company as large as Nintendo is halting pre-orders it must be concerned there will be significant changes in pricing on the way that might make it difficult to honor pre-orders at the original MSRP.
An update from Nintendo pic.twitter.com/iygReQlBwlApril 4, 2025
Though the idea of not being able to guarantee a pre-order in the US for the Nintendo Switch 2 is certainly noteworthy, the larger picture for PC gamers is what a precedent this sets.
If you care about PC Gaming, you will likely be using a lot of non-US hardware. TSMC's largest and most up-to-date fab is based out of Taiwan, and it is the most valued chip maker in the world. We are still two years away from the estimated date that TSMC's Arizona factory will be on 3 nm tech, and we don't yet know if this will save the next lineup of Nvidia and AMD GPUs from tariffs.
Though AMD is based in the US, its manufacturing is largely done outside of it. Intel manufactures in the US but has facilities all around the world.
These tariffs reportedly won't hit semiconductors, but pc gaming hardware is more than just semiconductors, and tariffs can still hit semiconductors if placed in devices and imported in.
Trump's tariffs also won't hit hardware that is already in the US so, if you've recently placed an order for a shiny new GPU on the way now, you should be fine.
However, if the graphics card or gaming laptop you've had your eye on suddenly can't even be pre-ordered at your favorite store, that suggests prices are about to go up. If a retailer or manufacturer's storefront does not yet have that hardware in its hands, the future looks rather bleak for any kind of consistent pricing. That is until major manufacturers have a grip on how to react to these tariffs.
Nintendo announcing a pre-order date, and then quickly pulling them over the span of a week certainly doesn't look good for other gaming hardware price-rises in the very near future.
