Nintendo says tariffs aren’t the reason the Switch 2 costs $449.99

In summation to a caller console and lineup of games, Nintendo besides revealed immoderate sticker shock astatine its Switch 2 lawsuit past week. The console volition outgo $449.99 — a large leap from the archetypal Switch, which debuted astatine $299.99 successful 2017. Some person speculated that the terms hike was astatine slightest partially owed to the ongoing disorder astir President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs. The timing was surely awkward; Trump announced a fresh, wide-ranging question of planetary tariffs the aforesaid time arsenic Nintendo’s event.

But Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser says that tariffs did not straight interaction the console’s archetypal terms tag. “Put [the April 2nd announcement] aside. Any erstwhile tariffs were not factored into the terms itself,“ helium explained, speaking to maine the time aft the event.

That whitethorn beryllium true, but the interaction of the April 2nd tariff announcement is already being felt. Just 2 days aft its event, Nintendo announced that it was delaying Switch 2 preorders, which were primitively slated to statesman connected April 9th, successful bid to “assess the imaginable interaction of tariffs and evolving marketplace conditions.” There’s presently nary caller preorder date, and whether the terms of the console volition …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.