Gamers Sue Nintendo to Block a Double Tariff Payday

Two gamers from California and Washington filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo on April 21, arguing the company will pocket tariff refunds it doesn't deserve. As first reported by Stephen Totilo at Game File, plaintiffs Gregory Hoffert and Prashant Sharan claim Nintendo passed tariff costs directly to consumers through price hikes, then turned around to claim refunds from the federal government for those same costs. The full filing is available on Scribd.

The logic is straightforward: after President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs hit in 2025, Nintendo raised prices across the board. Switch 2 accessories like the Pro Controller and Joy-Con 2 went up by $5 to $10. The original Switch Lite jumped $30, the standard Switch $40, and the Switch OLED $50. Nintendo CEO Shuntaro Furukawa told investors in May 2025 that tariffs would be "incorporated into the price" of products. Then, after the Supreme Court ruled Trump's tariffs were unlawful, Nintendo joined over a thousand companies in suing the U.S. government for refunds. The plaintiffs' argument is that Nintendo collected the tariff costs from customers and is now trying to collect them again from the government.

"Unless restrained by this Court, Nintendo stands to recover the same tariff payments twice, once from consumers through higher prices and again from the federal government through tariff refunds, including interest paid by the government on those funds," the lawsuit states. The proposed class covers everyone in the U.S. who purchased Nintendo products impacted by a price increase between February 1, 2025 and February 24, 2026.

I think the core argument here is hard to dismiss. If a company raises prices specifically because of tariffs, says publicly that tariffs are being baked into pricing, and then gets those tariff payments refunded by the government, keeping both feels like textbook double-dipping. Companies like FedEx and UPS have already said they plan to pass refunds back to customers. Nintendo has made no such commitment.

Nintendo's own lawsuit against the federal government was put on hold pending the implementation of a refund system, which is reportedly starting this week. The Switch 2 itself launches June 5 at $449.99 in the U.S., a price that wasn't raised due to tariffs, though its accessories were.