For months, Nintendo, the manufacturer of famous video game series such as Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong, expected that on the morning of April 2, was a celebration.
With a lot of fanfare, the company has announced the price and the release date for Switch 2, its new video game console for eight years. In an event in New York City, Doug Bowser, president of Nintendo of the American president, has risen on stage while the fans cheered up the arrival of new games to accompany the console; Mario Kart, Donkey Kong and Kirby with each other.
So, later, the same day, President Trump announced the rates that sent the global share markets and jeopardized the Mario party. The new switch was made in Vietnam, one of the countries of the rates list.
Two days later, Nintendo said he was delaying the pre -orders for Switch 2 and probably increasing the price of $ 450. How much he was not clear. But Wednesday, Trump said he delayed the rates enlarged on Vietnam and in many other countries for 90 days. Nintendo has yet to say how the delay will affect the price of Switch 2.
Nintendo’s Whipsaw experience shows the wider chaos that Mr. Trump’s on-and-off rates have caused technology producers and the uncertainty of how the market for consumer technology will be in the coming months.
In a statement before Trump delayed his rates enlarged on countries other than China, Nintendo said that he still intended to release the Switch 2 in June, but did not set a date for when he would reopened the pre -orders or announce a new price.
The players had already taken social media sites such as X and Reddit by thousands to complain. While it is a common practice in the sector for players to blame the high cost of consoles and games on corporate greed, they have instead turned to blame Mr. Trump.
Jake Steinberg, player and writer of Philadelphia, visited New York last week to play a demo of The Switch 2. Now he is not sure how much the cost that would be willing to face has been added.
“There is an extreme amount of irony, because people always said this refrain,” keep politics out of the games, “said Steinberg.” Well, here he is. “
For years, Nintendo has produced its game consoles in China. But he moved most of his production to Vietnam in 2019, during Mr. Trump’s first term, to evade the rates and the threat of a commercial war between China and the United States.
Those maneuvers seemed to be at all, since the plans of Mr. Trump announced last week threatening heavy new rates on goods from Vietnam (46 percent), Japan (24 percent), Malaysia (24 percent) and Cambodia (49 percent), leaving the producers in the region with few options.
But due to the delay announced on Wednesday, Nintendo could be one of the lucky ones. Most consumption electronics, including smartphones and other game consoles, are still made in China. And they should be subject to rates of 145 %, larger than a few days ago. The products made in Vietnam, like most countries, are still affected by a 10 %rate.
The delay gives Nintendo 90 days to increase the production and stock up in the United States, said Michael Pachter, Wedbush Secrities analyst. But for other technological companies such as Apple, which generally does not start producing new iPhones until months before the release date, it may not be an option.
Nintendo could still end up playing the delicate game of deciding how much the price can increase without removing the players – many of whom have already heard $ 450 was quite steep – or hope that in the end it will not be hit by the expanded rates.
For gaming companies such as Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, the sale of console is only one aspect of their business: if customers choose not to buy a new console, they will not also be able to buy the software for the games themselves, which sell at higher margins than the hardware.
While the cost of consumer technological products could increase throughout the line, added Pachter, increases prices on the lively articles that people are waiting for years – such as The Switch 2, the first console released by Nintendo since 2017 – it is very likely to create consumer indignation. It has estimated that the new cost of Switch 2 could be increased by up to $ 100 if the Trump administration went on with the rates.
“People will not notice if the TV price increases, because nobody is waiting for June 5 to buy their TV,” Pachter said. “They will notice it gradually. But it is different for a product launch like this.”
In interviews with the media before the rates of Mr. Trump were announced, Bowser di Nintendo said that the expected cost of future rates was not taken into consideration in the price of $ 450 of the console. But analysts largely contest this statement, indicating the price of $ 340 of Switch 2 sold in Japan. (A spokesman for Nintendo said that the Japanese model is limited to the Japanese language, which is partly the reason why it has a lower cost.)
Nintendo will probably wait for the dust to be satisfied with the tariff chaos of Mr. Trump before announcing a new price, said Doug Creutz, Cowen analyst, an investment company. And, he added, there was still the possibility that Mr. Trump would completely withdraw from the rates.
“They don’t want to have to change their price a second time,” Creutz said. Among the decisions he said that the company is evaluating: “Are we willing to take less profits in the United States? Do we want to protect our profit margin?”
Nintendo did not delay the pre -orders for the switch 2 elsewhere in the world, where the cost varies according to the region; $ 442 in Great Britain, $ 435 in Australia, $ 450 in Canada. Nintendo still makes about 30 percent of his production in China, which he uses to provide non -US buyers, said David Gibson, MST Financial analyst.
What will help to compensate for part of the cost, in the short term, is that by the end of February, Nintendo had already sent 746,000 Switch 2 units in the United States, which are immune to rates if they are restored, said Gibson.
“This will protect them for a quarter,” he added. “But after that, the price will be the complete rate.”
Nintendo is not the only technological company that evaluates the compromises of the price collection on its products. In the same way, Apple has moved some of his manufacturing manufacturing in Vietnam from China in 2019. Other console producers such as Sony and Microsoft will have to face a similar dilemma when they produce their next consoles, which should be released around 2027.
“He will hit all the large consumer electronics companies: Samsung, LG, Apple, the great TV producers, the game consoles,” said Gibson. “It’s all.”