Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony explain how the President could make consoles too expensive Nintendo LifeIn a joint letter to the President\u2019s administration Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony have argued that U.S. President proposed tariffs on China could hurt the video game industry and make consoles more expensive than ever. The letter was sent to the United States Trade Representative regarding the yet-to-be-finalized list of goods imported from China that will be subject to a new, 25 percent increase on tariffs (a tax on imports or exports between sovereign states). Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony say the cost from these new taxes will ultimately be passed on to American consumers and could put more than 220,000 jobs at risk. U.S. President (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) have yet to reach an agreement on trade between the two countries. What did the companies have to say? In the letter Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo point out that the video game industry generated $43.4 billion dollars in 2018 and employs more than 220,000 people both directly and indirectly. They also point out that in 2018, over 96 percent of video game consoles imported into the United States were produced in China, which means they would be affected by the new 25 percent tariff \u2013 a cost that most likely would be passed on to consumers. \u201cThe video game console supply chain has developed in China over many years of investment by our companies and our partners,\u201d the letter read. \u201cIt would cause significant supply chain disruption to shift sourcing entirely to the United States or a third country, and it would increase costs \u2013 even beyond the cost of the proposed tariffs \u2013 on products that are already manufactured under tight margin conditions.\u201d \u201cGiven that the main purpose of video game consoles is to play games, the harm to the thousands of U.S.-based game and accessory developers who depend on console sales to generate demand for their products would be equally profound,\u201d the letter continued. \u201cThe ripple effect of harm could be dramatic.\u201d 96 percent of video game consoles imported into the United States are produced in China. What happens next? The President laid out his new proposal to impose a 25 percent import tax on nearly all consumer goods produced in China in May of 2019, but so far there\u2019s no official word from the White House or the U.S. Trade Representative about when they would go into effect. China\u2019s President Xi Jinping and the President will both be at the 2019 G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan and there\u2019s talk that the two could move forward on a trade agreement that would avoid the tariffs, but we\u2019ll just have to wait and see. All the recent talk from games companies about their amazing, next-gen consoles might be for nothing if the tariffs go into effect and the price climbs out of the reach of average video game consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony explain how the President could make consoles too expensive Nintendo LifeIn a joint letter to the President\u2019s administration Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony have argued that U.S. President proposed tariffs on China could hurt the video game industry and make consoles more expensive than ever. The letter was sent to the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}