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GRTV News - Nintendo Switch 2 US launch in jeopardy
Could Trump's tariffs spell doom for the Nintendo Switch 2
Audio transcription
"Hi there, welcome back to GRTV News, I'm Alex, as usual, going through the afternoons, latest and greatest when it comes to gaming, technology, entertainment, whatever you like and indeed whatever you love, we've always got it here for you at GRTV News and in the wider Gamereactor network as a whole, so if you like what you see and you want to see more, be sure to check out Gamereactor wherever you get it from for more gaming reviews, gaming previews, movie reviews, series reviews, exclusives, interviews, world news, sports news and of course, so much more."
"Without further ado, today we're talking something that I guess combines world news and gaming, as we're talking the Trump tariffs but how they're going to affect the Nintendo Switch 2's launch.
Now these tariffs have been the talking point of world politics, world news, world economics for the past few weeks or so, as it seems that Trump is entering what many are calling a trade war with allies as well as enemies, so you know like Russia, China, they're being hit the hardest but places like Europe and other places in Asia are also being hit quite hard by these tariffs which are basically Trump's effort to try and get America to produce more of its own goods rather than rely on other countries for things like electronics and other things that America might be able to make itself necessarily."
"However, it is believed that if nothing changes on these Nintendo, on this tariff to China, the price could skyrocket for the Nintendo Switch 2 as the majority of the units are made in China.
Some of them are made in Vietnam and some were already shipped over to the US ahead of the launch which is coming on the 5th of June but a lot of the units, most of the units are going to be coming from China and being shipped over to the US and as this launch is looming more and more, getting closer and closer, it seems more and more like we could see a real skyrocketing price."
"Already people have been critical about the price of the Nintendo Switch 2 as it's $450 which means, or at the time of recording I should say, considering we don't know if it'll go up considering the tariffs but it's already Nintendo's most expensive console to date and also includes $80 games which make for the most expensive sort of like standard game price to date that we've seen as well."
"But as Alberto talked about here, basically there is currently a 90 day pause on the tariffs as they remain at a worldwide rate of about 10% but Trump continues to increase this percentage of tariffs based on China.
So it's now, I believe it's recently just been announced to go to 245% or 145% sorry which is kind of ridiculous when you think about how it's going to basically cause more and more, yeah it's 245% Trump tariff basically to China which is only going to increase as China tries to retaliate with it's own tariffs and vice versa."
"There is sort of a loophole I believe for smartphones so maybe the Nintendo Switch could be brought under that for electronics but if the tariff goes up and that causes the price to rise it's highly likely that we see very limited launch sales for the Nintendo Switch 2 in the US as people just would be paying out of their nose for something that other people in Europe and Japan and other places could get for a lot cheaper."
"Now of course we don't know anything for certain yet and we don't know if this is going to happen but as Alberto writes here it's not the end of the world for the Nintendo Switch 2. It's a massive market that they will be having crippled by these tariffs but in Europe and elsewhere we're still seeing massive pre-order sellouts as people really really maintain their excitement for this console as it is the first new Nintendo console in 8 years so people are going to want to see it even if the price is a bit higher and the game price is a bit higher and there's not that much stuff at launch."
"But let me know what you think, do you think the tariffs are going to break the Nintendo Switch 2 sales figures in the US? Do you think it's going to be something that will eventually blow over? Let me know what you think is going to happen, let me know all that and more and I'll see you tomorrow for some more JRTV news, goodbye!"
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