GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.
Gaming has never been more expensive. We’re here to investigate why, and help you play more while spending less.Welcome toGameSpot Cheap Week.
Like seemingly everything else in life these days–from gas and groceries to coffee and ground beef–video games and the systems they’re played on are getting more expensive. There are numerous reasons for this, and the overall picture for the near future is a bleak one.
“A few separate pressures all landed at once, and it’s the pile-up, not any single one, that’s made gaming feel suddenly expensive,” Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics told GameSpot.
As part of GameSpot’s Cheap Week, we’re running through the history and context of how we got here, the facts on the ground, and what comes next.
What’s going on?
There are numerous factors at play that have contributed to the situation the industry now finds itself in. US President Donald Trump’s controversial tariff plan, announced in April 2025 (on the very same day as the official Switch 2 reveal, to boot), is one reason. In short, the Trump administration’s actions led to higher costs borne by console manufacturers. In the environment of line-must-always-go-up capitalism, those increased costs were passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices at retail. All the while, companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo raked in gigantic profits, paying executives massive sums along the way.
The tariffs were deemed illegal in 2026 by the United States Supreme Court. Subsequently, companies like Nintendo and others were able to seek refunds, but no one should expect the companies to return any recouped money to consumers who paid higher prices. Nintendo recently said in court that it bears no legal obligation to pass along any refund (plus interest) that it gets back from the government to people who paid more. Making its case, Nintendo’s legal team said people who paid higher prices due to tariffs “received exactly what they bargained and paid for.” Microsoft and Sony have not commented on plans for any tariff refunds it may receive, though Sony touted the positive impact in its financial results. Many people are dismayed by these results, seeing it as a situation where companies charged people more to cover the cost of tariffs, got the money back, and then kept it. Nintendo may have a legal case to keep any refunded tariff money, but that doesn’t mean regular people who paid the Trumped-up prices are going to be happy about it.
