Nintendo says it has no legal duty to pass its U.S. tariff refunds on to consumers

Nintendo is asking a court to dismiss a proposed class action suit that was filed this past spring by gamers who say the Mario maker is breaking the law if it doesn’t pass on its U.S. tariff refunds to consumers.

Those consumers “received exactly what they bargained and paid for” when buying price-hiked Nintendo goods last year, the company said in a filing on Monday in the case of Hoffert et al v. Nintendo.

“Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs.”

Nintendo increased the price of Switch 2 controllers and the original Switch last year, following the imposition of globe-spanning U.S. tariffs (tariffs described by Nintendo’s lawyers on Monday as “sweeping” and “constantly changing”).

This past February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs were illegal.

A month later, Nintendo sued the U.S. government to get a refund. And in April, gamers filed the class action claim against Nintendo in Washington, saying it would be illegally double-dipping if it made money from tariff-hiked sales and then from a refund. The gamers sought relief for anyone in the U.S. who bought price-hiked Nintendo items between February 2025 and February 2026.

“The common thread among Plaintiffs’ claims is that it is somehow ‘unfair; that Nintendo has not retroactively adjusted its prices for completed sales in response to the outcome of the tariff litigation,” the company’s lawyers wrote in today’s motion to dismiss.

“But that is not how commercial transactions work.