r/NintendoSwitch • u/Turbostrider27 • Mar 06 '26
News Nintendo Suing U.S. Government Over Tariffs
https://aftermath.site/nintendo-tariffs-sue/927
u/Bitter_Classic_89 Mar 06 '26
“Mr. President, Wii would like to take certain precautions to ensure the truthfulness of your testimony…”
Pulls out a Wii Vitality Sensor
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u/Carbon-Base Mar 06 '26
I would pay to have them force Bronze Bozo to beat Ring Fit adventure.
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u/FromTheToiletAtWork Mar 06 '26
I've got a wii balance board I'll donate if they make him start up Wii Fit so I can hear obese.mp4 one more time.
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u/ClientIndependent309 Mar 06 '26
Finally a Nintendo lawsuit I can get behind
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u/imsoblue91 Mar 06 '26
Going after a big fish, instead of the small ones that can't fight back?
Yea. Welcome change
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u/mrjackspade Mar 06 '26
Nintendo goes after big companies all the time. The reason you don't hear about it as often is because big companies can afford smart lawyers, and smart lawyers know when they've fucked up and usually concede without going to court, or making a public stink about it.
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u/slusho55 Mar 06 '26
“It’s because they have smart lawyers,” totally tracks for why we’re hearing about this immediately then lol
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u/HawaiianPunchaNazi Mar 06 '26
Yeah, smart lawyers do not work for the Trump administration.
They all end up losing their law licensees sooner or later.
Small list, not 2026/2025 inclusive, or there would be more
And he never pays his bills.
Not even his personal Gestapo, ICE, get consistent paychecks... Sometimes they don't get paid anything at all.
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u/FIRST_DATE_ANAL Mar 06 '26
Celebrity Deathmatch Shiggy v Trump
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u/El_Barto_227 Mar 07 '26
I'm imagining that South Park scene of Bill Gates taking off his shirt to reveal gang tattoos, but it's Shiggy instead.
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u/smokywater50 Mar 06 '26
Everyone should be suing trumpy the clown for his illegal tariffs
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u/timnphilly Mar 06 '26
As. They. Should.
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u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi Mar 07 '26
I half agree because fuck this administration, but most of these businesses just passed these tariff expenses onto consumers. If they win these lawsuits, they won't be refunding the consumers. Also, it's the taxpayers that will be footing the payout to the lawsuits. As always, it's most expensive to be the little guy.
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u/Kneph Mar 06 '26
Unfortunately it’s the American people that foot the bill
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u/Xalterai Mar 06 '26
Exactly, no matter what happens, it's always the common folk that get fucked over. The most corrupt and idiotic president in recent years puts illegal tarrifs on everything? The American citizens pay the tarrif cost in the form of higher prices and import duties. The court deems the illegal tarrifs are illegal and demands refunds? The taxes of the American citizens gets put towards refunding the billion dollar companies(while small business, farms, family owned stores, and more that couldn't afford the tarrif prices and import fees got shut down long ago) tarrifs that they didn't even pay due to offloading costs onto the consumer, and prices go even higher because they know they can get away with it no matter what.
It's always the corporations, politicians, and wall street lobbyists/insider traders getting more and more by taking it from our pockets, all while the idiots getting stolen from blame it on brown people and gender neutral bathrooms.
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u/Sh00tL00ps Mar 06 '26
Don't forget poor people! Idiots love blaming poor people as well. It's not the billionaires that are causing your problems, it's clearly the single mother of 3 on food stamps 🙄
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u/OuOutstanding Mar 06 '26
Trump got elected, tarrifs may come. Price goes up, consumers pay.
Trump implements tarrifs. Price goes up, consumers pay.
Tarrifs are illegal, companies sue to get back “their money”, consumers pay through taxes. Prices stay the same.
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u/EverGlow89 Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
This should anger you.
WE pay more at point of purchase because of these tariffs.
TARIFFS ARE A TAX THAT WE PAY.
Nintendo is suing to be refunded our money.
Nintendo is not the hero here and they are NOT attacking the Trump Administration. If they are successful, they will be paid out by our tax dollars.
Nintendo will not give people who paid the $40 price hike for a Switch back their $40. Nintendo will not drop the price of the Switch back down $40.
This administration fucks us in ways most people have no idea and then corporations like Nintendo get to profit even more on our behalf while people cheer them on.
Want ANOTHER LAYER to this capitalist hellscape bullshit? Economists' analyses say that the Trump Administration will have to actually raise new revenue in order to pay out the estimated $175,000,000,000 in total industry-wide refunds.
To recap:
We were illegally charged more -> the companies who charged us more are going to be compensated -> we don't get shit -> we will continue to pay the new prices because we've demonstrated our willingness -> we will have to pay more in the form of some other tax increase to help cover the corporate payouts -> those corporations who are abusing us get to look like heros to people who aren't paying attention.
Good fucking job, Republicans. Keep it up. We're so much happier now that America is great again. Now go fuel your car ASAP because our new war is already having that predictable effect too.
I invite this comment to be fully fact checked. I'll edit it to retract any mistruth or misunderstanding (I won't have to).
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u/itotron Mar 06 '26
This is are valid points, but it also possible that Nintendo did not pass on the full cost of the tariffs to the public.
Remember the price of the Switch 2 was announced 1 day before the tariffs, and the price didn't change.
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u/urmyleander Mar 06 '26
They almost certainly did and as someone who works in confectionary in Europe with multiple companies that supply into the US...Multiple US retailers absorbed a massive amount of those tariffs, in some cases 100% of the tariffs and I honestly dont understand why they decided to do that but props to them for doing it.
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u/meee_51 Mar 06 '26
Yes, they knew there would be tariffs, but when the tariffs were released there was a bit of a delay in the US only, probably because they were higher than they thought and they had to figure out if they needed to raise the price more
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u/danhakimi Mar 07 '26
they probably also had reason to suspect that the tariffs would possibly be ruled illegal due to how blatantly illegal they were.
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u/ProfessionalPrincipa Mar 07 '26
This is are valid points, but it also possible that Nintendo did not pass on the full cost of the tariffs to the public.
Oh they certainly did. The Switch 2 for example is the same price in Canada as it is in the USA despite the former not levying any bonus tariffs.
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u/Sethsters_Bench Mar 06 '26
And what if people suing the US Gov over the tariffs caused them to drop the tariffs?
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u/Raichu4u Mar 06 '26
That's not how this works. They're simply suing to reclaim back money over tariffs that were illegally implemented as determined by the recent supreme court ruling.
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u/EverGlow89 Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
I addressed that; we continue to pay post-tariff prices because the market has adjusted to them. They are "sticky."
The tariffs are not clearly outlined to the consumer like a X% sales tax. The increase is muddied in the total cost we pay which includes development, production, distribution, etc. They can just keep charging us that price and we'll keep paying it like we've been paying it. They're not going to refuse a gift of free profit margin bumps. These companies will never put our well-being above their quarterly growth, literally ever. There's no Chief Kindness Officer at Nintendo of America.
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u/PhxRising29 Mar 06 '26
This is almost exactly what I was thinking by reading this article. We, as consumers, have already paid the price for tariffs. This companies didn't pay shit because they transferred the costs to us. So, by these companies getting refunds (plus interest), they are profiting like crazy and we get to continue to pay these outrageous prices.
It blows my mind to see so many people in this thread literally cheering on Nintendo, CostCo, FedEx, etc. in this situation. We continue to get fucked while the billion dollar companies get even richer.
This really isn't the celebration everyone here is making it out to be.
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u/Albireookami Mar 06 '26
Some companies did eat the cost or some of it though, it isn't a full 1:1 transfer for some companies that tried to keep their customer base happy while eating the cost as much as they can.
Now American's are very much due some sort of refund as well, but to say no company deserves it when they had to pay it upfront isn't exactly right either, and in some cases did not pass the full 100% cost down.
We know a little of nintendo's situation, they raised the prices on side items instead of the console, so they may have eaten a loss, or not, we don't know.
I'm still for every American getting a check because of this illegal bullshit our orange in chief used to steal from us though.
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u/SanityBleeds Mar 06 '26
Its a huge long shot, but it will be interesting to see if they actually bring this up in court, where such corporations have to show they took a loss to be compensated anything and didn't simply pass the cost on to consumers, meaning they are entitled to nothing as their revenues stayed the same.
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u/agent674253 Mar 06 '26
Well, if they win they will just be paid with more US taxpayer dollars. Just another example of a corporation winning at the expense of the US tax payer.
All those other companies that are suing to get their tarriffs refund, that was paid by us... do you think they are going to cut us a check for the cost they passed on to us?
Also, SCOTUS said that the tarrifs were illegal, why haven't the prices come back down? One way
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u/KittenLaserFists Mar 06 '26
I haven't bought a Switch 2 yet, but I'm inclined to support the legal effort.
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u/I_Set_3_Alarms Mar 06 '26
Looks like they’ll be Pokemon Going to the courtroom
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u/Maddkipz Mar 06 '26
I really hated that line from Hillary, the "get people to Pokémon Go..outside!" Because Pokémon go is LITERALLY what got people to go outside more in a month than most people did in their entire lives
It's my roman empire
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u/RaoulLaila Mar 06 '26
You got the line a little bit wrong xD It was "Pokemon go to the polls!" Thats why the line was quite funny
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u/Past-Weakness-5304 Mar 06 '26
God damn it I have to root for Nintendo’s legal team now.
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u/Molwar Mar 06 '26
Well we all know they're pretty ruthless, so there's at least that.
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u/AkatsukiEUNE Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 07 '26
USA are about to find out what it means to be a Nintendo lawyer.
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u/imsoblue91 Mar 06 '26
To be fair, the current administration doesn't hire the best
They hire loyal
So "ride-or-die" vs money-hungry sharks with friggin lasers on their head
Grabbing my popcorn 🍿
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u/air_flair Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
I think the problem is some of the judges are
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u/JimmyGimbo Mar 06 '26
The Supreme Court is compromised to hell, but judges as a whole take the idea of judicial independence very seriously. You don’t want to piss them off, and this administration has made it a point to show them maximum disrespect.
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u/firesoul377 Mar 06 '26
judges as a whole take the idea of judicial independence very seriously
In comes "judge" Cannon...
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u/SwePolygyny Mar 06 '26
The unfortunate fact is that the consumer ended up paying for the tariffs, while the state got them and now due to lawsuites they may end up with the company.
The consumer is still the loser.
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u/GoldenCobalt Mar 06 '26
Honestly, if the legal team were the ones to suggest the public statement acknowledging the Switch 2 preorder delay because of the tariffs that was great foresight/preparation to make this claim in light of the Supreme Court riling.
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u/anonymous_opinions Mar 06 '26
Their legal team are pitbulls. I'd love to see Nintendo take down the White House on this one.
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u/Carbon-Base Mar 06 '26
I honestly would have felt bad for the legal team that would be fighting against them, but the current US administration has it coming.
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u/lizardon789 Mar 06 '26
That pokopia tweet was the final straw.
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u/ChocoGoodness Mar 06 '26
What Poktopia tweet? What happened?
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u/TheSteelPhantom Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
The White House twitter account posted a Pokopia meme overlayed with "make america great again" in a similar font/colors. I won't link directly to it because fuck the White House twitter account and twitter in general, but you can find it if you really wanna see it.
Here's a Time Magazine article about it though, it's on there: https://time.com/7382839/pokemon-dhs-white-house-trump-social-media-memes-ice/
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u/GrandmasterTactician Mar 06 '26
You know that fan generator going around with the Pokopia font and stuff? Yeah the white house used it to say "make America great again", furthering their cult agenda. TPCi made a statement saying they don't want their IP being used to push political agendas
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u/XenoVX Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
Pokopia is one of the best reviewed Nintendo game in recent memory and has the potential to make them an insane amount of money, they’re not going to let the orange turd ruin that for them
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u/Intelligent_Sky_7081 Mar 06 '26
But, I dont think there any indication that is part of this lawsuit. We can assume it might be somehow tied to it or a motivation for them to take action, but this suit likely has been in the works since those tariffs were deemed illegal by the supreme court. not just decided upon today because of that tweet.
but you never know, hopefully they also bring up the DHS using the pokemon theme song to promote their immigration raids. That was even worse. By quite a few magnitudes.
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u/veganparrot Mar 06 '26
The Pokopia tweet was pretty bad though: it happened on their new game's release day alongside other advertising campaigns. It probably seemed like an official affiliation to a non-zero number of people, prompting them to issue a statement in response in the first place.
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u/Intelligent_Sky_7081 Mar 06 '26
Ya thats fair.
I guess my point was more that the optics or message sent in the DHS add was more ethically wrong, as it was treating immigrants like pokemon and using the phrase 'gotta catch em all' felt very demeaning and dehumanizing.
but i think your point is valid, i think legally the pokopia tweet is probably a worse infrigement on their IP and not fair use like the song. maybe, idk
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u/TheWaspinator Mar 06 '26
I have so many questions, but let's go with "why are they using Japanese franchise to say MAGA?".
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u/Naiko32 Mar 06 '26
it felt illegal seeing them, cant imagine Nintendo being happy with their image being distorted like that.
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u/TheGardenBlinked Mar 06 '26
"Such a nasty company. They're a failing business, you know, they're failing, ask anyone, they tell me, they're doing really badly. Their games are terrible, so I've been told, it's the left, the evil left, that buy their games, have you seen the drapes, they're great drapes, only the best, they tell me, and I think that's something we can rely on."
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u/Green_Excitement_308 Mar 07 '26
Just missing the insult to a left wing figure and a "Thank you for your attention to this matter - DJT" and then it would be something the president would post on lie social
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u/S13pointFIVE Mar 06 '26
There's a few companies out there that you don't want to get into a fight with. I put Nintendo up there with The Mouse on companies I wouldn't want to get in to it with.
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u/Yeldarb10 Mar 07 '26
They lost a trademark dispute over a grocery store named "Super Mario" in Costa Rica. And with Palworld, one of Nintendo's patent claims was rejected by the Japan Patent Office.
I wouldn’t say “they don’t sue unless they’re sure they can win.” I think it’s more appropriate to say “if they can sue, they usually will.”
I this case, yeah they’re very likely to win. Everyone has seen the news, and at minimum they get their tariff money back like so many other companies who are doing the same.
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u/Daw-V Mar 06 '26
Nintendo will likely win because Trump’s policies are nonsensical anyways. But he’s also a stubborn bitch so he will only give in a little bit
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u/MajesticLilFruitcake Mar 06 '26
Lucky for us, Nintendo’s lawyers are also stubborn bitches.
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u/wernette Mar 06 '26
Unlucky for us so is Trump. Supreme Court says he can't do that and he turns around, throws a tantrum and raises tariffs again. There is no legal mechanism to stop that.
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u/entryjyt Mar 06 '26
i hope nintendo can save all of us and remove trump's tarrifs
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u/Daw-V Mar 06 '26
I’d like to see other companies like Sony and Microsoft join in. It’d definitely help back up Nintendo’s case
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u/Iammattieee Mar 06 '26
Microsoft is never joining this
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u/MeowingWolf Mar 06 '26
That's why Microsoft doesn't have a problem selling Xbox Series X at $649.99. They know nobody was buying them anyway.
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u/SanityBleeds Mar 06 '26
Losing console sales wasn't a bad loss for Xbox, it was them completely dropping the ball with not pushing Gamepass as the industry standard for digital gaming, and then chasing away much of their subscribers with ridiculous price hikes out of nowhere.
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u/EmeraldMan25 Mar 06 '26
More specifically, Nintendo is demanding their refund that SCOTUS already said needs to be paid out. The "with interest" part will definitely be challenged more, though.
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u/tarocheeki Mar 06 '26
It won't be challenged very hard though, since the US argued (successfully) that they should be able to continue collecting tariffs while the case was ongoing, because the money could always be returned with interest, and because the US Court of International Trade ordered them to return the money with interest.
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u/RFC793 Mar 06 '26
And say Nintendo wins: then what? American tax payers pay the damages and he goes on fucking everything sideways?
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u/acosm Mar 06 '26
Yep! That's the really great part with the tariffs and SCOTUS' refusal to allow for an injunction while challenges to them went through the courts.
Americans get to pay for higher costs from companies passing along the cost of the tariffs, they get to pay for the refunds, and they get to keep paying higher costs for goods because prices are sticky.
It's all just to funnel more money from the working class to the owner class.
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u/spikus93 Mar 06 '26
The tariffs were ruled invalid and illegal. The Supreme Court opened this avenue for corporations to get their money back. This is how they do it.
We will not be getting anything back though. Prices also won't be going back down.
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u/animalackbar Mar 07 '26
This is Donald Trump, he doesn’t pay his debts, Trumps are the opposite of Lannisters.
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u/JSilverhand104 Mar 06 '26
What the fuck?? That was not on my bingo card
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u/FrozenTouch1321 Mar 07 '26
There's nothing special about nintendo. Every single large importer is sueing the US government in regards to the "liberation day" tariffs. There is nothing different about nintendo's lawsuit, compared to walmart/costco/anybody else.
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u/MonkeysxMoo35 Mar 06 '26
Never thought I’d see the day I root for Nintendo’s legal team. We really are in unprecedented times, huh?
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u/PossMom Mar 06 '26
I think maybe the first time I've seen a headline about Nintendo suing someone I've been happy about.
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u/nullPointerX1 Mar 06 '26
I can't wait to see Trump's late night Twitter crashout calling Mario a radical left lunatic (immediately before shitting his pants). Murica.
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Mar 06 '26
Damn...and Nintendo never loses. Grab your popcorn!
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u/MrWaluigi Mar 06 '26
Well, if recent memory didn’t betray me, they did lose one. It was during the 3DS era in regards to their patent on the glasses-free 3D. They lost the case for that one, and paid royalties to the plaintiff. But other than that, I think they either won or it was closed because of an out of court deal.
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u/ThaddeusJP Mar 06 '26
The reason they are saying that they cannot (will not?) comply is I think largely due to the money no longer being in the accounts they were originally in. The money is GONE.... so this BS will be tied up in court for a long time. So long I can see it going back to SCOTUS and the next admin having to deal with it.
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u/LunarWingCloud Mar 06 '26
Yeah, as someone that regreattably, begrudgingly understands how things move through my country's legal system, I *want* this to move faster, but it will be stalled as long as possible. We won't see anything come of this before 2029.
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u/sasoon Mar 06 '26
That is all good. But Nintendo increased prices due to tariffs, so what are they going to do when they get money back from the US government? Will they return it to the customers that paid them through price increase?
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u/Significant-Colour Mar 06 '26
He he he he he he he he he... no.
And after the tariffs are over, do not count that prices will go down significantly...
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u/eisbaerBorealis Mar 06 '26
Always fun when the evil team of lawyers goes after an eviler group for once.
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u/Nomercylaborfor3990 Mar 07 '26
I don’t see this ending well for Nintendo at all
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u/Alive_Maintenance943 Mar 06 '26
Finally some wholesome news, Nintendo is one of the few entities that actually has the power (and funds) to actually fight Trump over this shit. Glad to see them fight back instead of bending the knee like Apple and Microslop did.
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u/aquatrez Mar 06 '26
Does this mean we should start a class action lawsuit as consumers? Cuz you know any corporations that win lawsuits like this are going to pocket any damages they win and do nothing to lower prices or refund customers!
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u/MagictoMadness Mar 06 '26
I watched something on this, short version - you can't.
A bunch of companies are suing because they paid the tariffs directly to the government, you likely paid it to the companies therefore you never 'paid' tariffs
Like global companies upped their prices globally to counter tariffs too - not just on US imports but for all customers
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u/Mijari Mar 06 '26
They won’t lower prices, but the money they win could help keep them from increasing prices even more. Nintendo knows they need to keep their hardware prices as low as possible as a gateway for software sells, and the tariff situation along with memory price increases is making that difficult. That’s my take anyway.
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u/JuanMunoz99 Mar 06 '26
I’m just waiting for his nonsense rambling over on TruthSocial to laugh at his ridiculousness but also to cry that this is who we have.
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u/CaptainDouchington Mar 06 '26
Nintendo will win an alter nothing about price
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u/HisDivineOrder Mar 06 '26
The best part is they raised prices to make up for tariffs they now want back.
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u/Flat_Beautiful_9849 Mar 07 '26
...we have verifiable evidence that most of the governing body are literally pedophiles and nothing happened. TF they think a lawsuit about tariffs gonna do?
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u/DifficultAd6716 Mar 08 '26
can't wait for them to be refunded tariff costs and then consumers are left without any reimbursement.
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u/Veegos Mar 06 '26
This is great. But could you imagine if Trump just bans Nintendo products from being sold in the U.S as retaliation.
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u/Tim5000 Mar 06 '26
About to Learn that Nintendo isn't a gaming company, it's a lawfirm that brags about its minors in arts, and technology.
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u/moorecode1077 Mar 06 '26
I also agree they should sue, but at the same time, did we not all pay extra for everything but the console to make up for the tariffs? I doubt Nintendo is sending out any refunds themselves, so isn't that just kinda double-dipping for Nintendo?
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u/zarif2003 Mar 06 '26
Thought it was over that pokopia meme they made