Nintendo has no obligation to pass tariff refunds onto customers, the company says, because Switch buyers received "what they bargained and paid for"

Nintendo has said it does not owe people who bought its products at higher prices any rebates, after the company raised prices in response to inflated US tariffs. The Japanese gaming giant is seeking the dismissal of a class-action lawsuit that argues this exact case: that consumers deserve a portion of the refund Nintendo could receive from the US government.

That's according to a Game File report, which obtained the filing in question. In it, Nintendo argued that "those who bought Nintendo's products received exactly what they bargained and paid for".

"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," Nintendo's dismissal request insisted.

Last year, Nintendo raised the price of the original Switch console - including its OLED and Lite variants, as well as several other products in the US. The hike also affected Switch 2 accessories such as Joy-Con 2 controllers, although not the console itself. Nintendo's hikes came after sweeping, US-imposed tariffs went into effect, which imposed levies on imports from most countries in the world. The tariffs caused several other consumer electronics - most of which are made in China, Vietnam and other manufacturing hubs in Asia - to also go up in price.

Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court struck down the tariffs, ruling them illegal, which prompted many affected companies to ask the US Government for refunds. Nintendo itself sued the US Government in March to this end. The class-action lawsuit was filed in April, and it seeks compensation for consumers who bought Nintendo's price-hiked products.

Part of Nintendo's argument for the dismissal of the class-action suit is that the company did not impose the full amount of tariffs onto consumers, which it said is not how other manufacturers acted when faced with the same situation.

"Like its market peers, Nintendo made the difficult decision to adjust some of its prices in response to market conditions including costs of memory, labor, shipping, and tariffs," Nintendo argued in the filing.

"Unlike many of its market peers, however, 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. 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."

Nintendo also stipulated that it wouldn't be possible to calculate the exact tariff amount related to each price increase. The company is recommending the case be handled through private arbitration, despite filing a public request for dismissal.

As noted by Game File, similar class-action lawsuits have been brought against other companies, notably rival Sony, pressuring the company to offer refunds to those who bought PlayStation products post-tariff hikes. Indeed, some companies - like FedEx - are doing exactly this, promising to pass tariff refunds onto the consumer, though most are content to use their refunds to, according to a Fortune report, offset Iran war-caused inflation instead.