President Donald Trump’s recently imposed tariffs on Mexico, China, and Canada could potentially lead to higher game and console prices, fewer physical releases, and supply shortages, according to some industry analysts.
As reported by Ars Technica on March 5, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella recently posted on social media that it wouldn’t surprise him “to see physical games that would be subject to tariffs simply not get made,” and that publishers might move to an all-digital strategy to avoid those tariffs.
Currently, most video game discs are produced in Mexico, so whatever game discs are still printed and shipped out will likely cost more to buy due to a newly activated 25-percent tariff. Remember, publishers and other companies are going to pass the cost of tariffs onto consumers. “What a mess,” added Piscatella.
And if you’re thinking, “Well, I’ll just buy games digitally to avoid the price increase,” that might not be possible. As pointed out by Piscatella last year, publishers would either raise prices on digital games to reach parity with the higher cost of physical games or, as mentioned already, simply give up entirely on producing and sell discs. Either option is bad. It also comes at a time when the future of physical media looks bleak.
Consoles are also likely to be impacted by tariffs, as explained by Nike Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad. On March 4, a day after the Trump administration’s tariff against China became active, Ahmad posted that, despite some mitigation efforts, 75 percent of consoles are produced and imported from China. These consoles will be hit by the tariffs and will likely cost more to buy in the United States. It’s also likely that fewer will be produced, which could lead to supply shortages.
As we reported in January, the president’s tariffs could see the price of consoles jump dramatically. A Switch could potentially go from $300 to $400. A PS5 Pro could see its price leap from $700 to $1000. And the Switch 2 could be slapped with a higher-than-expected price tag due to the ongoing tariffs, making a console that was potentially already going to be hard to buy in its first year even trickier and more expensive to obtain.
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