In light of Nintendo delaying the pre-order date for the Switch 2 because of the recent tariffs announced by the US, Entertainment Software Association (ESA) spokesperson Aubrey Quinn believes that these tariffs will have a negative impact on the gaming industry as a whole.
Speaking to IGN Africa, Quinn said that the ESA is currently keeping an eye on the situation. However, the industry body is expecting a lot more to happen with regards to tariffs, including potential retaliatory tariffs introduced by countries like China.
“We really are, at this point, just watching and trying not to have knee-jerk reactions, because we don’t think that what [the USA] announced this week is the end of the story, but what was announced this week and the tariffs as outlined, we do expect these tariffs will have a real and detrimental impact on the industry and the hundreds of millions of Americans who love to play games,” said Quinn. “And so our goal is to work with the administration, to work with other elected officials to try to find a solution that doesn’t damage U.S. industries, U.S. business, but also American gamers and families.”
According to Quinn, the impact of the tariffs will involve more things than just the cost of consoles and games going up. Quinn also believes that a lot of jobs will be at risk, since tariffs would mean that companies either have to raise their prices, or look for another way to offset their lost revenues. Quinn did note, however, that it’s “hard to imagine a world where tariffs like these don’t impact pricing.”
“But yes, the short answer is we know who the conversations need to be happening with, and we are working on making connections and making sure that they understand that we are eager to work with them to find solutions that this is about public, private sector conversations happening, so we can understand and make sure that they see the impact and the risk of impact to business, to consumers, and really everything that’s happening within the US borders,” explained Quinn.
To help with its goals of getting to talk to the right person, the ESA has teamed up with a coalition of other trade associations that would try and reach out the US trade representative Jamieson Greer. When asked if this approach has been working for the ESA, Quinn responded by saying “Yes.”
“I can tell you conversations are happening with… I don’t want to say every level,” she continued. “We’ve met with employees at the White House, we’ve met with employees at USTR [the office of the United States Trade Representative], so yes, we are having conversations and we’re also doing that in partnership with other associations to make sure that… This isn’t a video game issue. I represent the video game industry, so I’m very aware of the impact on the video game industry, the potential impact, but it’s not a video game industry. This is going to affect all consumer products from food to fashion to electronics.”
Quinn believes that, ultimately, the timing of the Nintendo Switch 2’s pricing was an unfortunate coincidence, since it led to wider media coverage of the console’s high price for the hardware as well as its games, coupled with the announcement of tariffs by the US government.
“It’s been interesting with media coverage around video games and tariffs because just unfortunate coincidental timing that the Switch [2 reveal] was the same day as [the tariff’s] announcement,” said Quinn. “There are so many devices we play video games on. There are other consoles, but as I was saying, VR headsets, our smartphones, people who love PC games, if we think it’s just the Switch, then we aren’t taking it seriously. This is going to have an impact.”
“And even American-based companies, they’re getting products that need to cross into American borders to make those consoles, to make those games,” she continued. “And so there’s going to be a real impact regardless of company. This is company-agnostic, this is an entire industry. There’s going to be an impact on the entire industry.”
The $449.99 price tag and the June 5 launch day for the Switch 2 was announced last week. The company had also confirmed that launch title Mario Kart World is priced at $79.99 for the digital copy, and $89.99 for a physical copy.
