It’s already been a tumultuous 2025 for the games industry, but what the US president has set in motion with tariffs will only worsen things.

In an industry that has been hit by a series of failures, layoffs, and studio closures, Japan’s games industry seemed to be in an exceptional position. Five of the eight major publishers and studios began the year with their stock prices at an all-time high, and their only real problem was a lack of staff. Except that, courtesy of Trump, Japan has been hit with a 24% reciprocal tariff. This will come into effect on April 9th – which of course has caused a huge hit to stock markets around the world.

Dr. Serkan Toto, Japanese industry analyst at KantanGames, pointed out on Twitter that many of the same eight companies have suffered huge stock market losses. VG247 tracked the stock market data and all closed in the red on April 7th (Nintendo: -7.85%, Sony: -10.4%, Capcom: -6.61%, Bandai Namco: -7.37%, Square Enix: -5.62%, SEGA: -7.29%, Koei Tecmo: -5.41%, Konami: -3.93%). The 10% base rate went into effect worldwide after midnight on April 5th. Companies like Nintendo and Sony are in a slightly more intuitive position, as they also make consoles.

It’s Monday 10am in Japan where Japanese game stocks currently react to these insultingly dumb tariffs like so:

Nintendo -7.35%
Sony -10.16%
Bandai Namco -7.03%
Konami -3.93%
Sega -6.57%
Koei Tecmo -5.83%
Capcom -7.13%
Square Enix -5.23%

The mobile game companies do even worse.

— Dr. Serkan Toto (@serkantoto) April 7, 2025

But we’ve already written that pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch 2 in the US will be delayed due to tariffs. Everything coming out for consoles will also be more expensive, and PC parts won’t get away with it, even with the chip exemption. VG247 is also right to point out that the US spends a huge amount on video games: last year it generated $46 billion in sales, while Japan managed barely a third of that ($16 billion).

It is a nightmarish web of cause and effect where there is no escaping the real impact of tariffs. It will affect everything and everyone. Even board games are facing the end of the great boom of recent years. It is just a question of when they will finally realize that it is only the consumers who pay for everything.

Source: PCGamer,