Nintendo has requested the dismissal of a class action lawsuit that accused the company of failing to pass on tariff refunds to consumers.
Earlier this year, two Nintendo customers alleged the platform holder raised hardware prices while seeking compensation for US tariffs.
They claimed Nintendo would break the law if it did not pass tariff refunds to customers who bought products between February 1, 2025 and February 24, 2026.
As Nintendo filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing consumers who purchased tariff-affected products “received exactly what they bargained and paid for.”
“If a consumer did not want to pay the advertised price, they were free to abstain from purchasing the product or seek out competing products,” said lawyers representing Nintendo.
“The common thread among Plaintiffs’ claims is that it is somehow ‘unfair’; that Nintendo has not retroactively adjusted its prices for completed sales in response to the outcome of the tariff litigation. But that is not how commercial transactions work.
“Nintendo or one of its retailers set a price for each product, and consumers decided whether that price was worth paying. Those who bought Nintendo’s products received exactly what they bargained and paid for: a console, game and/or accessory at a price to which both parties agreed.”
They continued: “The money Plaintiffs paid represents the purchase price of the goods they wanted and received; Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs.”
The filing clarified Nintendo did not pass the full cost of tariffs to consumers when it raised hardware prices.
“Nintendo did not simply increase each product’s price by the amount of tariffs it paid on that product or impose an across-the-board tariff surcharge,” the lawyers noted.
“Instead, Nintendo imposed modest and selective price adjustments, and it chose to bear the costs of tariffs on some of its most popular products of 2025, including its flagship console, the Nintendo Switch 2.”
Before the Switch 2 launched in June 2025, Nintendo delayed US pre-orders due to tariffs. Nintendo later clarified the tariffs did not affect the console’s original $449.99 price.
Nintendo subsequently sued the US government, requesting that the US Court of International Trade refund the tariffs paid “with interest.”
