This morning’s announcement that Nintendo is delaying US preorders for the Switch 2 immediately increased the salience of President Trump’s proposed wide-reaching import tariffs for millions of American Nintendo fans. Additionally, the Entertainment Software Association—a lobbying group that represents the game industry’s interests in Washington—is warning that the effects of Trump’s tariffs on the gaming world won’t stop with Nintendo.
“There are so many devices we play video games on,” ESA senior vice president Aubrey Quinn said in an interview with IGN just as Nintendo’s preorder delay news broke. “There are other consoles… 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 company-agnostic, this is an entire industry,” she continued. “There’s going to be an impact on the entire industry.”