Practically from his inauguration as president of the United States, Donald Trump launched a series of tariff measures that put many of the countries with which he maintained commercial relations. Very soon, the ESA (Entertainment Software Association)of which companies such as Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo or Ubisoft are part of the evil, warned how bad these economic impositions can sit to the industry, mainly due to the conditions of globalization that the sector is experiencing.
More tariffs, it is war. The Toma and Daca between countries that maintained a fluid commercial relationship with Trump has just begun, and we recently knew that if the US imposed 10% on Chinese productsthey responded with others in the opposite direction of 10 to 15% For American products such as coal, gas or oil. Similar answers They have given themselves after the announcement of the 25% tariffs for Canada and Mexico.
ESA said it. The association warned In a statement that “tariffs on video game devices and related products would negatively affect hundreds of millions of Americans and damage the important contributions of the industry to the US economy.” And although analysts like David Gibson, from MST Financial said On Twitter that the tariff to China would have a “zero impact” on the price of the Nintendo Switch 2 In the United States, it also left the door open to the thing could change if tariffs like countries like Vietnam remained, very important for the manufacture of the console.
The problem: physical games. The physical games market is increasingly a more residual part of the industry. But the thing could get worse. Analyst Daniel Ahmad He has highlighted that 20% of Chinese products would undoubtedly affect technological products such as consoles, mobiles and gpus (the latter It is already being noticed), while the 25% that Trump plans to carry Mexico would have an unsuspected effect: in the manufacture and consequent increasing discs, where the Latin American country has an important weight.
Less and less. Mat Piscatella, another video game expert analyst, Replica these Ahmad predictions With an even more disastrous prediction: “I would not be surprised to see that the physical games subject to these rates simply did not get to do, with the editors addressing a completely digital strategy.” And concludes: “What a disaster.” At the moment, they are only conjectures, but analysts seem to coincide that tariffs could have an unwanted effect on precisely North American editors, which is what this policy tries to avoid.
A future without physical format. Maybe this is the last lunge that awaits the physical games. The digital format gain ground Without rest, and the figures could not be clearer: in 2023 95% of the video games that were sold did so through digital roads. And decisions like Sony’s launch the PS5 Pro without disk unit (You have to buy separately) or Microsoft’s launch A new model Of Xbox Series S also without an album, they make it clear to which direction the industry is.
Header | Álex Alcolea
In Xataka | Nvidia lost 265,000 million dollars yesterday. Tariffs have caused terror among technology
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