U.S. Gamers Prepare For Price Hikes In 2025

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“Donald Trump has won the presidency and, if he actually goes through with some of his policy proposals, the consequences for gamers will be stark. One of the reasons electronics are so cheap in America is its robust trade relationship with China.

During the campaign, Trump said he'd impose a baseline 60% tariff on Chinese exports. If he does that, the price of all the stuff gamers love is going to go up. Laptop prices could spike by almost 50%. The cost of video game consoles could rise around 40%, making the upcoming PS5 Pro cost almost $1,000. The Switch 2 may be backward compatible, but it may cost quite a bit more than the original.

The Consumer Technology Association, the trade association behind CES,published a studyin October that looked at the possible effects of a 60% tariff on consumer electronics.

"Across the board, the tariffs will cause significant price increases for the U.S. consumer," the study said. The CTA estimated that laptop and tablet costs would go up 46%, smartphones would go up 26%, and video game consoles would spike 40%. That kind of increase would put the cost of the forthcoming PS5 Pro at just under $1,000. A top-of-the-line GPU, the kind used for AI and gaming, could bloat from around $900 to $1,300. The price of monitors would go up $109, desktops would go up around $74 overall, and headphones could cost an extra $35.”

This all started to play out during Trumps first term, but got buried by the pandemic and a farmers bailout. Buckle up gamers and tech enthusiasts. Your hobby is about to get more expensive.

Things I've learned from this forum:

1) Donald Trump will destroy gaming because China

2) A Trump presidency will make people's teeth fall out (this is seriously being argued in OT)

3) Donald Trump getting the popular vote and the electoral is sending certain people to Butthurtville faster than Cell Block D

4) Since the election, I'm seriously running out of popcorn. But that's okay because inflation is a Democrat thing, and those guys are done.

5) I can buy more popcorn because: see #4

Haven't we gone through this a couple years ago?

@nod_eclipse_: well I mean the tariffs will necessary influence prices. There is only so much that businesses can absorb to shield the consumer. Besides, If prices rise across the industry, the sellers know the competition also has to rise, so they are more willing to do it.

Also it will depend on weather only china is targeted, or as been announced before, it will be a wide net.

If all other countries are impacted then, the prices will rise for sure. If it's only china, another low cost country may produce them instead.

But yes, I am sure, inflation will rise.

Even if all production is moved to the USA, production costs are just higher there, specially if ilegall immigration is tightly controlled.

Some people will see this as a necessary evil. I am myself of the view that all countries should maintaining a minimal amount of industry, just in case there is military conflict. The issue will be how much it will rise and which industries will be affected the most.

@SOedipus: yes, and inflation did happen.

@nod_eclipse_: Popcorn is my favorite food!

I agree that the election hyperbole is out of control. But the Trump tariffs are a bad idea across the board. Especially for gamers

@ghostofgolden: for me the key, is which areas of industry you want to protect.

If you protect everything, other countries will also stop buying from you, because they will consider it a loss.

If you decide to protect some key industries, what are those industries?

The united states should also consider that it's commercial balance seems negative because they are not taking in to consideration all the services that google, apple, meta , x, Amazon and other provide in other countries.

The USA economy is a result of that, way higher per Capita than other large countries.

Europe for instance, If under tariff pressure, may decide that closing it's internet market for foreigners will generate more money than selling physical goods to the USA.

China actually achieve a large economical growth by doing just that.

There is also the chance that trump doesn't go through with the tariffs at all.

For instance, let's say that the Chinese government benefits the trump state by transferring funds through an American lobby, like Jeff yass did to make trump oppose the TikTok ban.

In that case, there would be no tariffs, or lower tariffs specifically for China.

this is on all y'all, I voted for Michelle Obama.

@ghostofgolden: I wouldn't worry if I were you as Trump is a known liar and they only thing he's likely to pass is gas 🤣

I'm not sure if Trump is going to do anything he says. I'm not sure Trump remembers what he's said.

Born rich, never got to know how the real world works and how living is for non rich people, always got what he wanted, is almost 80 years old. Pretty safe to say that the guy is a lunatic who has no idea about what's going on.

Trump receives millions from corporations for his campaign. Corporations remember the debt, they want their economy to do well, so no doubt the tariffs are coming.

Just look at this last 4 years in office: almost all of the decisions he made were for his friends or for giant corporations. He is not a president for the people, he is a president for himself and for greed first and foremost.

Yeah, he's been showing his intentions to the world all his life. But Americans are not very bright.

Partly true, partly we can't rule out how much of an impact misinformation has had on this election.

People are controlled (I don't mean informed, I mean controlled) by Social media and the owner of one of the biggest social media platforms on the planet (Elon Musk) backed Trump.

"People"? You mean Americans? Yeah, they're not very bright.

In my country, if someone says that the government rigged the election, that people eat cats and dogs, and that it's good to grab women by the pussy, people in my country is not going to believe it.

@Litchie: As I was saying, Trump is owned by the corporations he is indebted to for millions:

You're right, the forum is crazy, you should leave.

I think they said the same thing the first time he was in office.

Might go on a shopping spree in the next month

Frankly the tw*ts who voted for him deserve it ....and more

lol :P

Anyway, even if tariffs were to be applied (they won't, China will capitulate, they must because they're in deep doo, doo as it is) just use all that extra cash you'll be saving from super low energy costs.

Trumps 2018 tariffs did impact tech prices though… Trump put temporary exemptions into effect that then expired in 2021. He’s now planning further tariffs.

Did folks really flush all this from their memory?

Nah, I'm on PC. Games are cheaper than ever.

Yes, I think it was between the time before that, and somewhere before "shootings are caused by video games".

@nod_eclipse_: I mean, both #1 and #2 are true, he has policies which will do those things.

It’s not the forum’s fault for acknowledging that Trump will do what he said he’d do.

I’m hoping (among many more important non-gaming related things) that the Switch 2 doesn’t become too expensive in anticipation of those tariffs.

I'm in a "wait and see" state of mind about this. Yes, if Trump does everything he said he would, we will see higher prices on electronics and many other things. But Trump spouts so much, he can only ever follow through on about half of it. Plus, he wants love and adoration desperately, and he knows a lot of folks voted for him to bring inflation down. His tariffs will most likely not be as across the board as he said they would, and he will likely subsidize many of the hardest hit industries like he did with farming last time.

One way or another though, his contribution to the National Debt is going to be tremendous.

You deserve it.

Canada is just superior America, we need to admit this.

Bret Hart was right.

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

Despite the whole Tariff crisis, Tariffing a lot of foreign goods, it's not gonna effect prices as much as people think (last time, Donald Trump put up Tariffs he did make exceptions for certain products that at the time could not be made in the U.S, which will almost definitely happen here) but even if it did it would just speed up the foundry construction Intel and TSMC have been doing the last couple of years.

Either way, I'm gonna upgrade my gaming PC very soon to the ITX class with the new 9800X3D before anything happens.

@ghostofgolden: this is good news, its fine if prices go up since these things aren't necessary anyways.

The same conversations are happening in board game communities at the moment. They're almost always produced in China and shipped to the US.

Once you factor in how long they take to develop and manufacture, even the threat of future tariffs means they might have to start raising prices now.

It sucks and companies might struggle for a while (or even just struggle with the uncertainty of another Trump presidency), but it'll only last a few years at worst.

Someone actually believes that businesses shield the consumers.

There'd be far broader consequences for the economy overall. Inflation would affect pretty much everything so not only would everything cost more, people's expendable income would shrink.

Oh well, doomsday scenario, I have a backlist that might last me years if I had to sustain my gaming habit off of it.

I'd be curious if there's certain workarounds toward some stuff, like that stuff where parts are procured from say China but final assembly takes place elsewhere.

@davillain: Im going to microcenter tomorrow to pick up my 9800x3d you want to come?

@pc_rocks said:

@nirgal said:

@nod_eclipse_: well I mean the tariffs will necessary influence prices. There is only so much that businesses can absorb to shield the consumer. Besides, If prices rise across the industry, the sellers know the competition also has to rise, so they are more willing to do it.

Also it will depend on weather only china is targeted, or as been announced before, it will be a wide net.

If all other countries are impacted then, the prices will rise for sure. If it's only china, another low cost country may produce them instead.

But yes, I am sure, inflation will rise.

Even if all production is moved to the USA, production costs are just higher there, specially if ilegall immigration is tightly controlled.

Some people will see this as a necessary evil. I am myself of the view that all countries should maintaining a minimal amount of industry, just in case there is military conflict. The issue will be how much it will rise and which industries will be affected the most.

Someone actually believes that businesses shield the consumers.

Right? Publishers don't even need tarrifs to price hike their games, just "I want more fucko"

Which is exactly what is going to happen when GTA6 normalizing it for the rest of the trash.

They might actually try to use this now as an excuse, but they were doing it regardless you marks.

@uninspiredcup: I guess I am the only person whose job is actually to decide prices.

Yes, you do shield the consumer from price hikes. Not out of the kindness of your heart, but to not loose market share.

Usually the first person to increase prices looses the most market share.

Also, you do the math, and try to figure out what price gives you the optimal revenue. Increasing prices, depending on the product can decrease the unit sales so much that you loose more revenue than the increased price provides.

I am sure you guys studied this in college as well, it's called price elasticity. If you are selling commodities like gas/oil you can increase the price as much as you want, the consumer needs your product. If you are selling unnecessary things like entertainment products, the consumer can simply chose another form of entertainment.

This also depends on brand power, like Nvidia is much more able to increase prices than AMD, because their consumers will still prefer their products.

The issue with never raising the price, is that your margins get so low that you don't have enough to reinvest in to development. For software that can ok, because you won't have marginal costs (so you can start high and decrease your prices over time until they are super low), but with hardware every unit has a material, labour and logistics costs that you can't skip, so your margins have to be higher to allow for reinvesting.

So you can keep the attitude of businesses are evil and their costs don't affect the consumer price, but unless you are apple and you are working with huge margins, the costs definitely affect your prices and tariffs add to the costs.

This is simple math. Try yourself to calculate a value chain and then tell me how it goes.

@lamprey263: this is already done. Basically what china does is export a parts pack that is assembled at another country (usually Vietnam or Mexico) but many countries require a minimal percentage of parts made in the country of origin to acknowledge the product as being from that country.

That percentage is different based on the product.

That's not really how gaming works.

The publishers in unison price hike, their is no other selection within the medium other than perhaps indie games.

GTA6 will do this (regardless). The game itself absolutely does not need a high price, it will set record sales for any medium. But they will do it because they have a guaranteed seller, which other publishers (EA, Ubisoft, Activision etc.. etc..) will in unison copy and normalize that price point.

The consumer is in reality, quite ignorant, they know, they want this. And it's worked for years.

The likelihood that gamers, of any relevant percentage will quite on mass is non-existent.

They will bitch and moan, but publishers could litterally come to their home, urinate in their mouth and they'd still consume on mass.

To reiterate, tariff or not, when GTA6 releases, this will be the beacon call to charge people higher prices, because they "feel" they deserve more.

GTA6 going to be $100. They can’t afford to pay these poor developers enough because these games cost too much to make. I heard that even some people have had to steal breast milk from the company fridge just to stay alive.

@uninspiredcup: I meant hardware. Software is actually still produced in the us in large quantities.

Software won't be affected as much as hardware by the tariffs.

Software sales price will be set more according to fixed development costs (salaries ) and their idea of an what an optimal price strategy will be.

Though software prices may be affected if legal immigration is restricted, because it depends on a lot of foreign developers working for usa companies

@Archangel3371: While watching Me Myself and Irene I bet 🤣

I kinda hope it does happen, as it will be fun watching Trump fans bitch about paying $100 per game while trying to blame it on the other side of politics 🤣🤣🤣

@last_lap: Never saw that movie so I’m lost on the reference.

@Archangel3371: At work atm, when I get home I'll post the scene that my post is referring to.

@last_lap: games will not be affected much. Because most tariffs are on physical goods, and a lot of games are developed inside the USA.

Games may he affected if legal immigration (work permits) is reduced, because that is the main way American companies access a larger pool of developers.

Lmfao... the coping is real. The democrats own 95% of social media and news outlets and you still lost. That's because the misinformation and propaganda have reached all time highs and people from all over the world actually believed it until all the promises continued to be unanswered and daily life became harder and harder. Trump being re-elected is the best thing that could have happened for the entire world. Where the US economy goes the world economy goes... same with China though.

President Trump 45 and 47 (hell, might as well add in 46 while we're at it), the Senate, and the House. The blue haired gang is done!

Now police can actually do their jobs again, we can close the border, drop prices, lower utilities, and reach energy independence again.

He's already done more since being elected than Biden/Harris have done in 4 years. The illegals got their meal ticket cut off and will soon be kicked out of those nice hotels. It's like sanity is actually trying to clear the dark and stormy sky.

It will be nice to put our own country first for a change... you know kind of like how every other country does?

Democrats can't even define what a woman is anymore... no more men in women's sports, no more free sex changes, and no tax on overtime.

@nirgal: Yes they will be affected. Because MS/Sony/Nintendo/PC parts etc hardware will cost more and these guys will raise game prices as well to offset fewer consoles/hardware being sold.

It will have a flow on effect in relation to everything gaming. And there's one big, MASSIVE reason, and that's America is the home of greed, and they won't need much of an excuse to raise prices.

Want a perfect example, well Sony has streamlined its PS5 consoles twice using cheaper parts and STILL raised the prices of their consoles blaming inflation. They aren't here to look after their customers, they're here to milk their customers for all they can get.

@WitIsWisdom: this is to understand the world with feeling and not with logic.

You can feel happy about winning like having your sports team beat another team.

But policy implementation follows real life rules. Prices are not controlled directly by governments in a capitalist society, and they are affected by cost for the most part (bar some some specific scenarios of very high profit margins) . Taxes like tariffs are part of the cost equation.