Nintendo is requesting a dismissal of a class action lawsuit filed against it following Nintendo's own lawsuit against the US Government, as it argues that it doesn't owe customers any money back if they paid for price-hiked products.
Back in March, it was reported that Nintendo was filing a lawsuit over the allegedly "unlawful imposition of tariffs" in the US, and requested that "all tariffs collected under the IEEPA Duties must be refunded with interest."
However, as reported by Game File in April, two individuals then went on to file a class action lawsuit against Nintendo, claiming that, "unless restrained by this Court, Nintendo stands to recover the same tariff payments twice – once from consumers through higher prices and again from the federal government through tariff refunds, including interest paid by the government on those funds."
The individuals were referring to the Nintendo price hikes we saw last year in the US – first, we saw the price of Switch 2 accessories go up before the console even launched, and a few months later, the Switch 1 family of consoles also saw price increases. The class action complaint, filed "on behalf of millions of consumers who purchased goods from Nintendo during the tariff period and who paid inflated prices," seeks "restitution of those tariff overcharges, together with appropriate declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief."
Now, though, as Game File reports, Nintendo is asking for this proposed lawsuit to be dismissed, reportedly stating in a new filing that customers "received exactly what they bargained and paid for" when they purchased goods after the price hikes. It notes that "the common thread" in the claims against it 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 says "that is now how commercial transactions work."
It continues, noting that customers willingly paid the hiked prices – "Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs," it adds.
Beyond that, Nintendo also claims it didn't "simply increase each product's price by the amount of tariffs it paid on that product or impose an across-the-board tariff surcharge," saying it instead "imposed modest and selective price adjustments" and "chose to bear the costs of tariffs on some of its most popular products of 2025, including its flagship console, the Nintendo Switch 2."
The price hikes clearly weren't the sole result of the tariffs, either, as Nintendo points to "market conditions including costs of memory, labor," and "shipping," too – making the concept of trying to work out exactly how much a given product's price had increased by as a result of the tariffs alone a more complicated affair.
Doubling down on the idea that consumers willingly paid the prices set out in front of them, Nintendo also argues that the individuals behind the lawsuit don't have grounds to sue since, well, they could have simply chosen not to pay. "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."
Nintendo thinks that the case be dealt with via private arbitration – its call for dismissal is reportedly in case this is denied.
It's not just Nintendo that's been rolling out price hikes over the last year or so – just last month, Xbox announced yet another console price hike (the third one since 2025), while Sony announced PS5 price increases back in March. At the time, Sony blamed "continued pressures in the global economic landscape." As Nintendo notes in its recent court filing, the increasing price of memory is also no doubt a huge factor here, and unfortunately, Valve engineer Yazan Aldehayyat recently stated that the RAM crisis is "still getting worse."
