Following the announcement of President Trump's new international tariffs on imports to the United States late last week, the value of major Japanese game companies has tumbled on the stock market.
Imports from Japan to the US will be hit with a 24% tariff when the tariffs come in to effect on Wednesday 9 April 2025. Japanese government are preparing negotiations with the US on trade tariffs but PM Ishiba has said "When we negotiate with the US we want to present a package. That will take some time, but we will make it a success".
Taking to social media site, X (formerly Twitter), the CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy Kantan Games, Dr Serkan Toto, posted that the following big companies suffered the following losses:
- Bandai Namco -7.03%
- Capcom -7.13%
- Koei Tecmo -5.83%
- Konami -3.93%
- Nintendo -7.35%
- Sega -6.57%
- Sony -10.16%
- Square Enix -5.23%
Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders postponed
The most notable of those impacted is Nintendo who only last week announced the Nintendo Switch 2, the highly anticipated successor to the incredibly successful Switch. Last Friday, Nintendo took the unprecedented step of postponing pre-orders for the new hardware, just a few short days after fully revealing the console and its June 5 2025 launch date.
The biggest factor of the postponement of Switch 2 console pre-orders is believed to be the tariffs imposed on to Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia and Vietnam who were slapped with a 49% and 46% tariffs respectively on exports to the US. The Financial Times have recently reported that Nintendo had been shifting some production away from China, to Cambodia and Vietnam.
When pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch 2 in the US will begin is now TBC whilst Nintendo "assess market conditions".
Tariff implications globally
Countries around the world are scrambling to work around the Trump trade tariffs. What this means for the wider video game industry is unknown, with many core video game developing countries also now needing to pay higher tariffs to sell their physical goods in the US.
Gamer Social Club will continue to report on all developments.
