Newly Imposed US Tariffs Impacting Vietnam and Other Countries Could Lead to Games and Hardware Price Hike
[summaraize]
Back in 2019, Nintendo made the move to manufacture consoles from China to Vietnam after the looming threats of a U.S. trade war with China. While this would help them avoid potential tariffs back then, it seems that the U.S. now has its sights on Vietnam, as new tariffs have just been announced that would impose a 46% on all products coming from the country.
This includes gaming consoles like the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 and the PlayStation 5, as well as potentially Xbox.
Gaming May Become an Even Pricier Hobby
As just announced, US President Trump will impose a 10% tariff globally, with some countries seeing a much more severe increase. The biggest to take the hits are Vietnam (46%), China (34%), Cambodia (49%), Japan (24%), and the EU (20%). While this will impact several goods across different industries, for gamers, we’ll likely see a price increase in both games and hardware as console manufacturers will likely pass the cost onto consumers.
Unfortunately, this does mean it may impact console makers such as Nintendo and PlayStation, both of whom mass-produce consoles out of Vietnam. We’re unsure whether Xbox still makes a majority of its consoles out of the country, though all three console makers have ties to Foxconn, the main manufacturer of these hardware and components. It was only last year that Foxconn set up new facilities to mass-produce PlayStation consoles.
This has led to many people within the video game community cautious of what most think will be a significant price hike on gaming goods.
Nintendo shifted its manufacturing to Vietnam to avoid tariffs and with today’s reciprocal tariff announcements they’re likely going to end up paying tariffs anyway.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) April 2, 2025
Just announced:
— Shinobi602 (@shinobi602) April 2, 2025
The U.S. will tariff products from Vietnam at a 46% rate. Could heavily impact Switch 2 pricing, possibly globally.
➡️ https://t.co/6PFlJiXUrS
Nintendo shifted Switch 2 production from China to Vietnam/Cambodia to avoid tariffs. Others include 34% tariffs on… pic.twitter.com/iT1mifnoBt
On the PC gaming side, Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have some sort of presence in the country, as well as several partners and board makers. We’re unsure if a majority of their manufacturing is done there, though given how much they operate from there and other affected tariff-impacted countries, we’d say it’s safe to assume prices will go up. Not like they haven’t already as a response to previous tariffs.
With console prices already increasing over the last few years and Switch 2 running up at a high cost of $449, it’s hard to imagine just how much worse prices will get. Though for PC gamers who have been paying attention to GPU prices over the last months, with MSRP essentially disappearing and partners hiking up the prices of certain cards by over 50%, the news of potential price increases is one they probably aren’t too surprised by.
All we can say is don’t be surprised when you start seeing the price of things jump, including items not even affected by the tariffs. What is a somewhat affordable hobby may soon become rather expensive, especially with hints that Nintendo is already looking to increase the MSRP of games to over $80.
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