Nintendo is chasing a large refund from the US government over tariffs it says were charged illegally. At the same time, it is telling a court that the people who paid more for Switch hardware during that period are owed nothing in return.
Quick answer: Nintendo will not repay Switch customers even if it wins its tariff refund. It has filed a motion to dismiss the class-action suit brought by two buyers, arguing they “received exactly what they bargained and paid for.”
What Nintendo told the court
Nintendo’s core position is that a completed sale cannot be reopened just because a cost changed later. In its filing, the company says its retailers or Nintendo itself set a price, and each buyer decided whether that price was worth paying. Anyone who bought a console, game, or accessory got the product at a price both sides agreed to.
Those who bought Nintendo’s products received exactly what they bargained and paid for – a console, game and/or accessory at a price to which both parties agreed.
The company’s lawyers add that customers “are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs.” Nintendo also frames the purchases as voluntary. If a buyer thought the advertised price was too high, the filing says, they “were free to abstain from purchasing the product or seek out competing products.”
Nintendo further argues that the price bumps were never a straight pass-through of the tariff bill. It points to several cost pressures at once, including memory, labor, and shipping, and says it made “modest and selective price adjustments” rather than raising everything. It even claims it absorbed tariff costs on some of its biggest 2025 products, including the Switch 2.
The 2025 price increases that started the fight
The dispute traces back to price changes on the original Switch line in the US, widely tied to sweeping tariffs introduced under President Trump that hit products made in China. Nintendo raised prices across the older hardware, with the increases landing at different amounts per model.
| Product | US price increase |
|---|---|
| Switch Lite | +$30 |
| Switch | +$40 |
| Switch OLED | +$50 |
Note: the more recent Switch 2 and online membership price hike is a separate matter and was not driven by these tariffs.
The refunds Nintendo is trying to collect from the government
US courts found that the president lacked the authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose those import duties, since that power sits with Congress. Following the ruling, Nintendo joined more than a thousand companies in suing the US government to recover what it paid, plus interest.
The scale of the potential payout is significant. More than 330,000 affected importers are in line for refunds totaling as much as $166 billion, with interest accruing at roughly $650 million a month. Nintendo wants its full share of that money back.
Who sued Nintendo, and what they want
Two buyers, Gregory Hoffert of California and Prashant Sharan of Washington, filed a class-action complaint in the Western District of Washington. Their argument is simple. If Nintendo recovers the tariff money from the government, the difference that customers paid at higher prices should flow back to those customers.
The proposed class covers people who bought Nintendo products at the raised prices between February 2025 and February 2026. The claim is essentially that Nintendo would otherwise be paid twice for the same tariffs, once through inflated retail prices and again through a government refund.
Where the case stands now
The suit is at the motion-to-dismiss stage, and Nintendo is asking the court to end it before it goes any further. The judge will now weigh whether the buyers have a legal claim at all or whether their purchases count as closed transactions that cannot be revisited.
Unless the plaintiffs can point to specific deception or a statutory violation tied to how the tariff cost was passed on, courts tend to accept the voluntary-purchase framing Nintendo is leaning on. For now, no refund is heading to Switch owners, and whether the case reaches trial remains undecided.