The price of the PlayStation 5 may increase and physical games may be at risk, claims an analyst as gamers brace themselves for potential hikes.
You may have seen in the news lately that the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump has imposed additional tariff charges on imported goods coming into the US. In a nutshell, this will increase the cost of imported goods for the consumer and may even have an impact worldwide.
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As reported by Push Square (via IGN), the import tariff charges are currently related to goods coming in from Canada, China and Mexico. Canada and Mexico will see a 25% charge with China at 20%.
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On Bluesky, Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners says that 75% of video game hardware is manufactured in China with some companies said to have moved production to Southeast Asia to counter the tariff increase. At least for the US, physical games are primarily printed in Mexico.
The PlayStation 5 is also manufactured in Japan as well as China. The Xbox in China and Hungry with the Nintendo Switch in China and Vietnam.
What’s more, hardware and retail Circana analyst Mat Piscatella also said on Bluesky: “It wouldn't surprise me to see physical games that would be subject to tariffs simply not get made, with publishers moving to an all-digital strategy.”
Very small piece of all this, but it wouldn't surprise me to see physical games that would be subject to tariffs simply not get made, with pubs moving to an all digital strategy.What a mess.
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 4 March 2025 at 13:21
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As of right now, we don't know how these events will play out but it might be safe to assume the worst and if something happens better than expected, it will be a bonus.
There is a possibility that companies such as Sony and Microsoft will take a loss on the tariff changes to reduce the expense for consumers, but who are we kidding?
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, large companies have used that as an excuse to raise costs on just about everything. So I won’t be holding my breath.
As always, we’ll keep you posted if we hear of any further developments on the potential price hikes on consoles and video games.
Topics: Nintendo, PlayStation, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Real Life, Sony, Xbox, Tech