Nintendo Says It Has No Legal Duty to Pass Tariff Refunds to Consumers - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 21 July 2026 / 3,280 Views
Nintendo says the tariff refunds it is receiving in the US does not have to be passed along to consumers.
Over 1,000 companies that includes Nintendo sued the US government for refunds after the US Supreme Court found the tariffs Trump put in place were illegal.
Two Nintendo players, Gregory Hoffert from California and Prashant Sharan from Washington, have sued Nintendo claiming any money Nintendo has recouped from the tariffs refunds should go to the customers.
Game File is reporting that Nintendo is asking the court to dismiss the class action lawsuit saying the consumers "received exactly what they bargained and paid for" when buying the price-hiked Nintendo goods last year.
"Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs."
"Nintendo or one of its retailers set a price for each product, and consumers decided whether that price was worth paying," Nintendo's filing reads. "Those who bought Nintendo’s products received exactly what they bargained and paid for – a console, game and/or accessory at a price to which both parties agreed.
"The money Plaintiffs paid represents the purchase price of the goods they wanted and received – Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs."
Nintendo added that a full refund wasn't as simple as it looks as the increase in price was due to the "costs of memory, labor, shipping, and tariffs." The company also "imposed modest and selective price adjustments, and it chose to bear the costs of tariffs on some of its most popular products of 2025, including its flagship console, the Nintendo Switch 2."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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And still loved by their fans playing their shitty games on their shitty console.
Uncalled for. Why you mad bro?
Fair enough but are PS and Xbox consoles and games really that much better, if you consider value for prize? Is even PC-gaming THAT great?
The typical PlayStation fan.
I’m fairly certain that person hates PlayStation too
Playstation fans, Nintendo fans... The bias is the same...
Remind me again how many tariffs did Sony and Microsoft refund to their consumers?
When you pay a price you are contractually agreeing that price is acceptable and that you are willing to pay it. Consumers and voters should blame Trump.
Exactly, the console is still being sold at loss in Japan. Those greedy dumbasses from the USA governing bodies will destroy livelihood of many Americans.
Since we live in a republic, the American people only have themselves to blame. You cannot just turn a blind eye to a guy who literally gloats about violating women and incites riots against his own country and expect anything different. If US citizens want better, they have to vote better. Until then, nothing will change.
The thing is the USA is causing disruption to the world. Like any great empire there are times of progress and there times of decline. The America is going to be in the decline due to immorality and greed of the leaders.
Sometimes consumers suing a company are really stupid! It is like if I pay full prize for a product that goes on sale the next day - "Uhhhh, oohhhh I have to sue them because the retailer knew that this product will go on sale the next day, he was obligated to communicate that fact to me!" No he was not! Business is sometimes mean - live with it - welcome to capitalism!
In fact, the right of withdrawal is a consumer protection mechanism. It provides the opportunity to return any product purchased outside of a physical store (such as an online purchase). The timeframe to exercise this right and request a refund ranges from 7 to 14 days.
This right is guaranteed throughout Europe and in many countries around the world.
However, just as with healthcare coverage, the US fails to protect its citizens—after all, those poor mega-corporations are the ones that need protection, right?
It depends on your tax system.
If the product invoice lists the product price and taxes separately... then Nintendo would be in the wrong.
It’s hard to say; I’m not familiar with the US tax system.
In tariffs case for the US, the tariffs tax is paid for by the importer. This means usually they will pass this cost on to the consumer but the consumer wouldn't know, as the base (non-taxed) price is all they'd pay, they'd then add sales tax to that.
In this case, Switch 2's price was fixed for release, so $450 plus tax for consumers but the importer had to pay tax and isn't adding it to the cost to consumer because Nintendo wouldn't want that, so as the importer wouldn't want to incur the tax and make less money, Nintendo would lower the price of per unit sold to importers, so Nintendo take the hit allowing the console to be sold at $450.
Make sense?
That makes sense. In this context, Nintendo never raised prices to pass on the taxes; it absorbed the cost in the hope of a legal remedy and the reimbursement of amounts improperly collected by the treasury.
If that is the case, Nintendo is, in fact, acting in good faith and in accordance with the law.
If it was the Tariffs and the companies didn't want to raise prices, then why won't they refund the money they didnt want to take?
This sentence makes no frigging sense even if everything was spelled correctly and it had proper grammar.
Fixed it.
If you cant understand it, thats a you issue.
He's the ultimate failed abortion.
Nintendo is correct that they do not have a "Legal duty" to do so. Though they do have a "moral duty" to be honest and do the right thing. This is such a bitch move and they basically said "Eff you I'm taking mine". The fact they went out of their way to sue for selfish ambition and do nothing to protect their own customers speaks volumes and is actually disgusting when it comes to multi-billion dollar corporations.
Nintendo did no raise the prices after the tariffs, at least not on the Switch 2.
what part of "they didn't raise the prices " didn't you get? They bore the cost so it is also morally right they keep the refund
The part that are are planning to raise the price and are not going to back track on it. Quite literally on September 1st. So I'm not sure where this "they didn't raise the price" is coming from.
The price is not necessarily rising due to the tariffs - but due to general RAM and other components' prices rising. Sorry but the "they didn't raise the price" is factual. A future price rise would be covered by the statement "they will not raise the price". Furthermore, whenever tariffs are imposed, companies do not necessarily pass on the entire cost to the consumer - and might decide to partially cover the added expenses. It would be very problematic to expect this as a 'refund', especially if the company bore partially the cost in the first place.
They don't have a "moral" obligation. Let's not go into the subject of morality needlessly. They may have a business or financial obligation to maximise their shareholders' money - but whether this is 'moral' is an entirely different conversation. I hope you are not teaching morality at home.
But wait, I was told foreign countries pay the tariffs.
I love Nintendo but these companies are not your friends. They take and will take more.
Tariffs were always an excuse for companies to raise prices and shaft the customer regardless.
This one isn't on the companies, its on the president.
They pretend to blame Tariffs then still pocket the money.
You cant make this up, people actually believe the excuses these companies dish out. No wonder the industry is a shadow of its former self.
Nintendo didn't raise the prices However. They bore the cost of these tariffs...
Well this is an example of "sometimes it is best not to say anything." But I told people this is how it would go, not just because when you buy a product as a customer you are contractually agreeing to the price, but much more importantly you didn't pay Nintendo for anything.
Unless you are one of the very few who purchased direct from Nintendo, you never paid Nintendo any money. You paid Best Buy or Game Stop or Amazon, they are the ones who paid Nintendo money so even if Nintendo were to pass down refunds, they would go to companies that actually paid them money. Nintendo is receiving this refund because they actually paid the tariffs to the government and it was ruled those taxes were illegal.
Which is why it is important that these refunds are given to the payers of those tariffs directly. I see some people saying they just shouldn't be refunded but to those I say, you have to think of the bigger picture. If these refunds weren't issued, that would mean that the State could impose whatever illegal tax they like, race to hoover up massive sums of money while the lawsuits work their way up to the Supreme Court, and then keep whatever ill gotten funds they have after the taxes are ruled illegal. That would more closely resemble the workings of a criminal enterprise than an actual government.
These are luxury items, if you don't like the cost, don't buy it. It's just that simple. You have only yourself to blame when you 'buy now, regret later', no one is forcing you to make these purchases.
Yet their diehard fans will standby them no matter what. The Nintendo you grew up with passed with Iwata.
Not really. It died with Yamauchi.
They didn't raise the prices though. They bore the cost.
Nintendo supposedly “cares about players, heart of gold”, the UNICEF of video games, the Red Cross…
In reality, Nintendo doesn’t care about its players or fanboys. They’re here for money. That’s what happens when people give Nintendo a free immunity pass.
Anyway, whether it’s Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony, they’re not your friends.
They’re here to make money, period.
OK right that's normal, since they're the corporate entity too. People who really cared about the fans like Hiroshi Yamauchi and Satori Iwata are no longer in charge of the business. At least Switch 2 has DLSS and cheaper digital games right?
I don't know. A lot of the guys who made NES and SNES games, they truly had a passion and love for creating those games. For them, it wasn't JUST a job to make money. They loved what they did, and they mostly operated from an art-first principle.
Yamauchi, and the men at the very top? Probably not so much. Although I bet Iwata cared more than most CEO's.
Yamauchi wanted superior experience on Nintendo platform. Despite of his lack of understanding in terms of game development and technical aspects of hardware were limited, he cared about the customers. He chose a correct person to be the CEO too outside of his relatives. It's the shame that Nintendo cannot sell the console at low prices anymore.
Iwata did, but on the other hand, I wasn’t too sad to see Reggie gone. I didn’t care for him.
What didn't you like about Reggie?
His whole attitude towards RPGs and deciding what games we did or didn’t get to play in North America, especially when there were English versions ready to go that had already been released by Nintendo of Europe. It should not have taken Operation Rainfall to get us a half-assed release of Xenoblade Chronicles. European and Australian Wii, DS, and 3DS owners were eating much better than the American user base.
Getting actual product is much more meaningful than cuddly corporate suits. Say what you will about Doug Bowser or his successor, but there was a lot less “will they or won’t they?” with regards to Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, or similar games.
If they returned the money, they would just raise prices elsewhere to make up for the loss
You don't win in this situation
I'm not surprised.
If I read the whole article it somehow reminds me of the greedy Sony during the PS3 era. Why do companies always get greedy after a highly successful console?
They don't get greedy, they've always been greedy. All three are here to try to make money just like gamers are here to buy games.
They didn't cause tariffs . Trump did. Nintendo had no increase due to tariffs. No company will eat the increase caused by trump.
But isn't that the point of this article? Nintendo eats the increase (refunds) caused by Trump. Or do I understand something wrong?
Didn't Nintendo offset the us tariffs by raising prices in the rest of the world? It could lower prices other places, again? to compensate people abit?
Scum company makes scummy decision. Not that Playstation and Xbox are any better
Why should gamers get any money? I mean the Switch 2 price hike hasnt gone into effect yet in the US...
