President Trump has suspended a whole series of “reciprocal” rates for the United States business partners around the world for 90 days. While many seem skeptical about the relevance of these measures, very criticized and largely unpopular, import taxes could come backWhat if Trump decided to do exactly that? A new report models what would happen in the worst case and predicts a crisis for the video game industry.
“The taxation of customs duties by the new administration on American imports of video game consoles considerably increases their costs,” said Consumer Technology Association (CTA) written in his May 2025 report. “Video games are not exempt from reciprocal customs duties and are subject to customs duties of up to 145 %. Imports of video game consoles have so far been exempt from customs duties, but average customs duties would increase to 130 % with new rates. This increase is due to the fact that China is currently the source of 87 % of American imports, and that these imports are subject to a new customs right of 145 %. »»
If the break expires, the reciprocal customs duties of up to 46 % on Vietnam and other countries return, and the rest of the current import taxes continues, the CTA predicts that the prices of the game consoles would increase up to 69.4 % if the complete tariff costs were passed on or consumers. This could mean an increase of up to $ 428 on the most expensive machines like a PS5 Pro. “American consumers would pay $ 12 billion more for video game consoles,” said the report. “As a result, US consumers are reducing their overall purchases [de consoles de jeux] 73 %. “
This worst scenario would be close to paralyzing the game on console On its largest market in the world. Less sales of consoles mean fewer new games purchased, with repercussions that quickly affect the rest of the ecosystem, especially since each dollar spent on customs duties reduces money that could have been spent on a new independent outing or a battle pass. Trump’s originality The final deployment of reciprocal prices was enough to convince Nintendo to suspend pre -orders of the Switch 2. Once the gel has been announced, the creator of Mario later declared that the next console would remain at the price of $ 450, although the price of individual accessories, in particular the jeacles and the cameras, would increase by $ 5 each. But this frost is currently scheduled to expire on July 9 at midnight.
-“Our basic policy is to recognize prices as a cost when determining selling prices in any country or region and to integrate them into the price,” said Shuntaro Furukawa, president of Nintendo. said at a press conference Following the last report on the results of the company published Thursday, according to Reuters“If the hypotheses relating to the prices change significantly, we would like to examine the price adjustments to be made and implement them after examining various aspects. »»
Even if the reciprocal prices do not return, it is unlikely that other game consoles, still mainly manufactured in China, remain at their current prices. Microsoft has already increased the price of Xbox Series X at $ 100and should be this year Call of Duty The first $ 80 entry into the multiplayer shooting franchise. It now seems that it is only a matter of time before Sony does the same time, seeing the PlayStation 5 up to $ 600 and the PS5 Pro closer to $ 1,000. If you were already planning to buy one at some point, you I probably don’t want to wait any longer.
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