Nintendo urged a court to dismiss a lawsuit demanding that it pass tariff refunds on to customers, saying that people who bought a Switch console or other products have no legal right to refunds that Nintendo is due to receive from the government.
Nintendo said in a motion to dismiss yesterday that plaintiffs are “ask[ing] this Court to invent a legal duty out of whole cloth to retroactively re-price completed sales simply because the legal landscape has changed.” Nintendo said the plaintiffs “have no legal entitlement to the tariff refunds Nintendo stands to receive.”
The lawsuit was filed in April by two customers who seek to represent a class of all US residents who bought Nintendo products from February 2025 to February 2026. California resident Gregory Hoffert and Washington resident Prashant Sharan filed the class action complaint in US District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleging unjust enrichment and a violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act’s prohibition on unfair or deceptive acts.
“Nintendo engaged in unfair acts by: (i) raising prices due to tariffs; (ii) failing to disclose that it intended to seek tariff refunds; and (iii) retaining tariff refunds despite having passed the costs to its customers,” the lawsuit alleged. In their unjust-enrichment claim, plaintiffs said Nintendo profits were “unjustly obtained as a result of its price increases on goods subject to unlawful tariffs.” Nintendo raised prices for the original Switch console by $30 to $50 and added $5 to $10 to the prices of various Switch 2 accessories.
Nintendo told the court that “the doctrine of unjust enrichment does not apply when a party voluntarily pays a purchase price and receives a product in return.” Nintendo said plaintiffs “received exactly what they paid for: Nintendo products that Plaintiffs knowingly and voluntarily purchased at the advertised price. Nor is there anything ‘unjust’ about Nintendo retaining money that it may receive from the government as tariff refunds. The fact that Nintendo stands to receive tariff refunds does not give Plaintiffs any legal entitlement to those funds.”
How is this news? Gas companies have been doing it for at least 60 years. Oil price goes up? Prices go up at midnight. Oil price goes down? You see, friend, this gasoline was made with the expensive oil, there’s a certain lag in the supply chain that we need to account for etc. etc.
Pure capitalism knows just one correct price, and that’s the price that the market will bear. Combine it with a monopoly and sky’s the limit.
Unpopular Opinion: If you bought a game console when prices were exploding you aren’t really in a position to argue real financial harm because… its a fucking video game console. It’s not housing, food, or some other major need.
Out of all the companies who will argue this, I honestly think the media companies have the largest leg to stand on because why are people just eating the cost increase of something that isn’t a need if they financially “can’t afford it.”
Also this isn’t a Trump “screw up.” The money landing in the pockets of the companies who donated to his campaign was the end goal from the beginning.
How do I know? Because a judge allowed the tariffs to go in while it was determined if they were legal or not and part of the reason the judge agreed was the Trump admin lawyers promising it would all be paid back to consimers if they lost. They never had any intent.
You’re part of the problem.
How? The opinion portion of the comment youre replying to is perfectly valid. It’s why any time there’s looting (BLM protests, Katrina, etc) the foil to the argument about lawlessness/looting is that the looting is almost always necessities (food, bedding, etc)
If you think the commenter is wrong for having stated that it wasn’t a mistake by Trump to pocket the tariff money, then youre wrong.
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I’d understand your argument more if it was an American company.
Oh, well since Nintendo “voluntarily” paid the tariffs, by their own logic, that means they’re not entitled to refunds either, right?
An other transfer of wealth to the big companies, witch later is used to destroy competition and increase prices.
In case there was ever any doubt who was paying the tariffs, I guess…
Paid twice.
US citizens paid Nintendo for raising its prices on them… and the wild part is that it’s not even the corporations exact fault.
The system is designed to have capitalism win.
How was it paid twice?
The money refunded to Nintendo, comes from the govenment, paid by the citizens’ taxes.
No it didn’t. Its a refund of the money paid to the govt by Nintendo.
The increased prices they paid due to nintento upping the prices due tonthe tariffs
Its the same money. Nintendo didn’t just pocket the money they were paid and ignore the tariffs.
The customers paid the tariff money to Nintendo through increased pricing, who then sent it to the gov. Then the gov returned it back to Nintendo.
And how fast did nintendo reduce their prices, and who pays the interests on the tariffs-reimbursements?
Unless the government has some special fund strategy where the money Nintendo paid in tariffs only went to the billionaires or the wars and the money refunded to Nintendo came from only infrastructure and social programs, it was only paid once. The first time, it was paid to the federal government via Nintendo. The second time, Nintendo was paid from the federal government’s money. Either consumers didn’t pay the first time because the federal government’s money is their money, or they didn’t pay the second time because the federal government’s money isn’t their money.
That doesn’t make it right that Americans keep having to pay tariffs on everything. This is just an inefficient and illegal way to raise taxes.
Unless the government has some special fund strategy where the money Nintendo paid in tariffs only went to the billionaires or the wars and the money refunded to Nintendo came from only infrastructure and social programs, it was only paid once.
How to say you don’t understanding capitalism while accidentally explaining capitalism.
Don’t purchase from anti-consumer brands like Nintendo. Subscriptions for game save backups should be against the law.
boycott them, correctly*
Nintendo fans are some of the most braindead consumers in the world.
They’re right down there with disney fans.
This entire situation is just pure MAGA PR BS. Trying to pass these refunds back to consumers is extremely impractical, bordering on logistically impossible, and managing it would certainly cost more money than the amount of the actual refund.
They knew these tariffs would be passed on to consumers when they created them in the first place. In both cases, it’s Trump trying to deflect the blame onto these companies for a situation that he created.
Xbox gave their customers credit/ vouchers after an early price drop. It would be even easier to do so now that people have online accounts.
Trying to pass these refunds back to consumers is extremely impractical, bordering on logistically impossible
Setting up an online portal for customers to submit their order numbers and receipts is logistically impossible?
I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like they’re kind of right? It’s a case of “you’re right but you’re still an arsehole.”
However, I think if Nintendo isn’t going to refund consumers, they have no business seeking refunds from the government.
I never really thought the lawsuit against Nintendo had much merit. If costs go up, so too must prices, and demand goes down. People who support the price increases and continue to buy at the jacked-up prices are sending the message that price has not affected (their) demand. I do not believe they should be made whole because they are not out anything. They saw the price and they chose to pay it. Like everyone who buys a Steam Deck post-increase, or Xbox, or PlayStation. The Steam Machine was always gonna cost about $1000, that’s been expected since it announced, and it hasn’t increased in price (AFAIK).
But, again, not a lawyer.
However, I do firmly believe that if Nintendo is not going to make consumers whole, it similarly does not deserve to get made whole. For the same reason. Those tariffs were the cost of doing business. And they chose to do that business, and they did so… by raising prices. So it seems if you can’t have one increase without the other… you can’t have one refund… without the other.
translation: “you made your bed - now lie in it”.
Mario is Italian for a reason.
🔥
Devil’s advocate: if they allow users to get refunds after the sale is complete because prices changed, it could also set a precedent for companies to demand additional money from consumers after a sale is completed, and I don’t doubt for an instant that Sony wouldn’t at least try to make that argument.
I miss Iwata and Reggie
