In a surprising bit of news this morning, Nintendo of America has revealed that the pre-order date for the Switch 2 has been delayed so that the company can assess the impact of the latest round of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. GameSpot was given a statement from the company confirming the news.
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9th, 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,” reads the statement. Without any elaboration, this could mean a number of things.
The biggest concern, at this point, is that the price of the console and its games could actually increase following these tariffs. Nintendo is facing some intense backlash for the price of Mario Kart World, so I don’t believe that will be the case. If anything, I anticipate that the games might become cheaper while only the console increases in price. The console going for $500-550, however, puts it in direct competition with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and that is a battle Nintendo would ultimately lose.
The second concern would be that stock of the console becomes super limited in the coming months. We’ve heard reports that Nintendo bulked up on stock of the Switch 2 to combat increased demand, but if these new tariffs are making shipping exponentially more expensive for Nintendo, it may not be able to afford shipping more consoles. There’s also a chance that the supply chain becomes so impacted that Nintendo cannot actually produce more consoles, though that’s really a doomsday scenario.
All in all, this announcement from The Big N pretty much solidifies what many of us were thinking from the start: the price of the Switch 2 is higher than anticipated because tariffs have destabilized the global economy. 2025 is certainly off to a great start.
More Switch 2 news
Nintendo Switch 2: Hardware, pricing, release date – Everything you need to know
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
