this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
56 points (98.3% liked)

Technology

43274 readers
272 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
remington@beehaw.org
alyaza@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org
gyrfalcon@beehaw.org
rs5th@beehaw.org
coldredlight@beehaw.org
SemioticStandard@beehaw.org
56
Nintendo says users voluntarily paid higher prices, have no right to tariff refunds (arstechnica.com)
submitted 6 hours ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.”

top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 1 points 12 minutes ago

I miss Iwata and Reggie

[–] excel@lemming.megumin.org 12 points 2 hours ago

This entire situation is just pure MAGA PR BS. Trying to pass these refunds back to consumers is extremely impractical, bordering on logistically impossible, and managing it would certainly cost more money than the amount of the actual refund.

They knew these tariffs would be passed on to consumers when they created them in the first place. In both cases, it's Trump trying to deflect the blame onto these companies for a situation that he created.

[–] bl4kers@beehaw.org 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Don't purchase from anti-consumer brands like Nintendo. Subscriptions for game save backups should be against the law.

[–] laranis@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] JillyB@beehaw.org 5 points 2 hours ago

Nintendo are excellent marksmen when it comes to their customer's dicks. They have been for a long time. -smash competitor

[–] MostlyBlindGamer@rblind.com 21 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

In case there was ever any doubt who was paying the tariffs, I guess…

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 8 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

Paid twice.

US citizens paid Nintendo for raising its prices on them.. and the wild part is that it’s not even the corporations exact fault.

The system is designed to have capitalism win.

[–] i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 hours ago

Unless the government has some special fund strategy where the money Nintendo paid in tariffs only went to the billionaires or the wars and the money refunded to Nintendo came from only infrastructure and social programs, it was only paid once. The first time, it was paid to the federal government via Nintendo. The second time, Nintendo was paid from the federal government's money. Either consumers didn't pay the first time because the federal government's money is their money, or they didn't pay the second time because the federal government's money isn't their money.

That doesn't make it right that Americans keep having to pay tariffs on everything. This is just an inefficient and illegal way to raise taxes.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 1 points 4 hours ago

How was it paid twice?

[–] ZeroGravitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

Unpopular Opinion: If you bought a game console when prices were exploding you aren't really in a position to argue real financial harm because... its a fucking video game console. It's not housing, food, or some other major need.

Out of all the companies who will argue this, I honestly think the media companies have the largest leg to stand on because why are people just eating the cost increase of something that isn't a need if they financially "can't afford it."

Also this isn't a Trump "screw up." The money landing in the pockets of the companies who donated to his campaign was the end goal from the beginning.

How do I know? Because a judge allowed the tariffs to go in while it was determined if they were legal or not and part of the reason the judge agreed was the Trump admin lawyers promising it would all be paid back to consimers if they lost. They never had any intent.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 12 points 6 hours ago

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.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

translation: “you made your bed - now lie in it”.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 3 points 3 hours ago

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.

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 3 points 4 hours ago

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.

[–] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 hours ago

they used the tariffs as a reason for the higher price. the refund should also go to the consumer. nintendo did not lose any money on this, we did.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 6 hours ago

Guess I’m not buying another Nintendo product. The Wii is fun. Fuck these guys.