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Will Tariffs Increase Switch 2's Price? Why The Console And Games Are So Expensive
(www.gamespot.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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Trump Tariffs have nothing to do with the Switch 2 prices in Europe. Everybody incl. Nintendo is just hiking prices because they can.
Switch prices have always been crazy. I only bought a switch because of my nephew and the fact that an almost 10 years old mario kart is still at full price is crazy. The way they try to push their paid dlc on kids is disgusting. The only reason they fer away with it because they are wholesome nintendo with quite a weird fan base
True but at least with physical media you can buy used.
Because of inflation, not just “because they can”. USD$60 in 2016 is ~USD$80 in 2025 thanks to the Covid money printing years of inflation. That’s a near 33% increase in costs across the board from the last time they released a console and priced their products.
As someone that grew up paying more for Atari games than I pay now for PC/console games, “GaMeRs” seem like the most pathetic crybabies who don’t understand much, especially economics.
I'm no economist but I thought inflation was the measure of the cost increase over time not the cause of it.
You aren’t an economist, that’s for sure.
Why do you think prices go up?
We usually measure inflation by looking at prices, but price changes are usually a reaction to the core cause of inflation, which is an increase in money supply. Creating more money makes money less valuable, which means people expect more of it for the same product and service.
During COVID, we printed a ton of money in the form of stimulus checks, reduced production due to health-related restrictions, and screwed up the global supply chain. Part of that was transient (production and global supply chain), but the money printing permanently increased the money supply.
But the cost of oil increased and therefore the cost of producing anything using electricity or shipping items so it wasn't like it created some massive surplus of money supply. Increased costs was the biggest driver of price rises in recent year and available money generally bought less than before.
Yes, supply chain issues were the largest spark of prices, but if it was just that, prices would've dropped back to where they were once supply re-normalized (i.e. inflation followed by deflation). That didn't happen, and prices remained high, meaning money supply increased in the meantime as well.
Deflation doesn't always follow inflation. Most countries fear it as it could spark recession. UK for example always aims for 2%, not 0%. It didn't help that Opec limited oil supply to keep price high.
In the UK, we didn't have stimulus check, but had inflation close to 10%, many countries in the EU too so the conclusion it was the money supply doesn't hold up.
TL; DR - the process was something like this:
I'm not talking only about stimulus checks, but any increase in money supply.
Ok, but you still had an increase in money supply at the same time as inflation. Look at some sources:
The money supply absolutely increased along with inflation. The Euro also saw increased money supply as well in the same period as high inflation, and here's another with similar data with a longer view (last link is a slightly different measure, M1 vs M2).
These sources show an increased money supply that strongly correlates with inflation figures: it increased dramatically as inflation kicked off, then slowed down but didn't decrease as inflation dropped. I don't know what exactly caused the increase in money supply in that era (would have to look into a bunch of policy changes in that period), but it happened.
If money supply wasn't increased, we would've seen a deflationary period after the causes of the inflationary period (price shocks due to global supply chain) were addressed. But central banks don't want deflation, so they increase money supply in some form to prevent it.
Fair points. Appreciate the references.
To be fair, most economics is purely 'because they can' with 'they' being shitheads in the owning class. if anything games (and most industries for that matter) should be going through a healthy period of deflation now (tariffs excluded) if not for said shitheads.
Most of it is increased costs being passed on to the consumer with a little/lot extra because they can just blame it on inflation. Inflation was the reason why the price was increased to begin with, but “they” then take advantage of it to maximise profits.