Nintendo urged a court to dismiss a lawsuit demanding that it pass tariff refunds on to customers, saying that people who bought a Switch console or other products have no legal right to refunds that Nintendo is due to receive from the government.
Nintendo said in a motion to dismiss yesterday that plaintiffs are “ask[ing] this Court to invent a legal duty out of whole cloth to retroactively re-price completed sales simply because the legal landscape has changed.” Nintendo said the plaintiffs “have no legal entitlement to the tariff refunds Nintendo stands to receive.”
The lawsuit was filed in April by two customers who seek to represent a class of all US residents who bought Nintendo products from February 2025 to February 2026. California resident Gregory Hoffert and Washington resident Prashant Sharan filed the class action complaint in US District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleging unjust enrichment and a violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act’s prohibition on unfair or deceptive acts.
“Nintendo engaged in unfair acts by: (i) raising prices due to tariffs; (ii) failing to disclose that it intended to seek tariff refunds; and (iii) retaining tariff refunds despite having passed the costs to its customers,” the lawsuit alleged. In their unjust-enrichment claim, plaintiffs said Nintendo profits were “unjustly obtained as a result of its price increases on goods subject to unlawful tariffs.” Nintendo raised prices for the original Switch console by $30 to $50 and added $5 to $10 to the prices of various Switch 2 accessories.
Nintendo told the court that “the doctrine of unjust enrichment does not apply when a party voluntarily pays a purchase price and receives a product in return.” Nintendo said plaintiffs “received exactly what they paid for: Nintendo products that Plaintiffs knowingly and voluntarily purchased at the advertised price. Nor is there anything ‘unjust’ about Nintendo retaining money that it may receive from the government as tariff refunds. The fact that Nintendo stands to receive tariff refunds does not give Plaintiffs any legal entitlement to those funds.”
An other transfer of wealth to the big companies, witch later is used to destroy competition and increase prices.
Oh, well since Nintendo “voluntarily” paid the tariffs, by their own logic, that means they’re not entitled to refunds either, right?
How is this news? Gas companies have been doing it for at least 60 years. Oil price goes up? Prices go up at midnight. Oil price goes down? You see, friend, this gasolie was made with the expensive oil, there’s a certain lag in the supply chain that we need to account for etc. etc.
Pure capitalism knows just one correct price, and that’s the price that the market will bear. Combine it with a monopoly and sky’s the limit.
Don’t purchase from anti-consumer brands like Nintendo. Subscriptions for game save backups should be against the law.
for every person who boycots there is ten who cry “i do what i want with my money”. it should be considered shameful to support corporations like these.
Devil’s advocate: if they allow users to get refunds after the sale is complete because prices changed, it could also set a precedent for companies to demand additional money from consumers after a sale is completed, and I don’t doubt for an instant that Sony wouldn’t at least try to make that argument.
I miss Iwata and Reggie
Isn’t Nintendo the company who gained notoriety for having a 50-year strategy? It was hailed as promoting long term vision over short term profits and focused on creating intergenerational fanbases and lifelong brand loyalty.
What part of that involves shooting your customers in the dick?
Legally, they’re probably in the right. But imagine being the one gaming company that issues tariff refunds and continues to create physical games that emphasize quality gameplay and rich storytelling with optional but engaging couch co-op multiplayer that brings people together over technology instead of tearing them apart.
Guess not if it would impact Q3 2026.
Nintendo are excellent marksmen when it comes to their customer’s dicks. They have been for a long time. -smash competitor
Nintendo told the court that “the doctrine of unjust enrichment does not apply when a party voluntarily pays a purchase price and receives a product in return.”
Is there any type of purchase where this isn’t the case? You could say the same thing about food.
Mario is Italian for a reason.
What a terrible take from a terrible company.
No more Nintendo, PS, MS, or games you don’t own, looks like GOG is the only game in town, pun intended.
You own the games you buy from Steam too. The license you get is the same one that comes with a physical copy. You don’t have to launch the game theough Steam or even have Steam installed to play. Once the files are on your machine, you can launch and run the game just like you installed it from a disc.
Orly? I thought they had the same basic model as Playstation and that the steam software was required to play games.
TIL. Thanks stranger!
I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like they’re kind of right? It’s a case of “you’re right but you’re still an arsehole.”
However, I think if Nintendo isn’t going to refund consumers, they have no business seeking refunds from the government.
I never really thought the lawsuit against Nintendo had much merit. If costs go up, so too must prices, and demand goes down. People who support the price increases and continue to buy at the jacked-up prices are sending the message that price has not affected (their) demand. I do not believe they should be made whole because they are not out anything. They saw the price and they chose to pay it. Like everyone who buys a Steam Deck post-increase, or Xbox, or PlayStation. The Steam Machine was always gonna cost about $1000, that’s been expected since it announced, and it hasn’t increased in price (AFAIK).
But, again, not a lawyer.
However, I do firmly believe that if Nintendo is not going to make consumers whole, it similarly does not deserve to get made whole. For the same reason. Those tariffs were the cost of doing business. And they chose to do that business, and they did so… by raising prices. So it seems if you can’t have one increase without the other… you can’t have one refund… without the other.
Yeah I don’t think there is a legal precedent in place for this sort of scenario. Ya know, the one where the President unilaterally demands an illegal tariff and the various departments all comply, but then someone tells them the illegal thing is obviously illegal and now they have refund all the tariffs they took.
Except that the tariffs that were placed on Nintendo’s products were ruled unlawful and refunded (to Nintendo).
Imagine that it was found a city tax was calculated incorrectly - you’d expect a restaurant to refund customers, not keep the extra sales tax for themselves.
Guess I’m not buying another Nintendo product. The Wii is fun. Fuck these guys.
