For those in the audience who like to tell everyone else you don’t give a shit about video games and don’t understand what’s going on here: If the headline’s still somehow inscrutable to you then instead try to imagine that there hasn’t been a new iPad or MacBook or even a Chevy Silverado model in eight years and yours is falling apart. You REALLY, REALLY want a new one and have zero desire to purchase the 2017 model when for $200 or $300 more (or $2000 if it’s the Silverado) and waiting until June 5th you can have the most current upgrade. That’s what Apple or Chevrolet told you earlier this week in their big splashy launch livestream, specifying that on April 9th you can put down a credit card to pre-order the new model and get it on day one. You’re freaking pumped.
Then this morning Tim Apple or Jean-Luc Marquis de Chevrolet are like “Ummmm, on second thought yeah the Trump tariff thing’s going to kind of fuck us up so we need to push that pre-order availability date back. We don’t know when, hopefully it’ll be soon. Oh, errr about the price too…”
In the real world, per IGN, Nintendo on Friday released a statement: “Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the US 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,” with IGN warning it “raises the prospect that it could hike the price of the Switch 2 and its games further amid what is already an angry backlash to its next-gen pricing strategy.”
“I don’t want to blow things out of proportion, but this does feel like a true crisis moment for Nintendo,” a former PR manager for the company said this week after the “Liberation Day” reveal, criticism IGN says was more about the original pricing than the tariff hit being forced on gamers.
Nintendo has a rabid, cultish fanbase that prooooobably isn’t going to take too kindly to this if they were already pissed at the company itself for the $449 price point – which now could be as high as $691 from the Orange Bowser’s pointless fucking 54 percent tariff on Chinese-made electronics.