In 2025, the Trump administration rolled out an aggressive round of tariffs that directly hit video game consoles, with PlayStation and Xbox unable to secure the exemptions given to companies like Apple. These tariffs contributed to the various price hikes we saw last year, but things could get even worse in the coming months.
Politico reports that the Trump administration is now weighing tariffs on semiconductors that would cast a much wider net over the tech industry. Rather than targeting chips alone, the proposed tariffs could also apply to products that use them, including laptops, gaming PCs, consoles, and data center servers.
That would once again push the price of PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox hardware up, although eight people familiar with the discussions stressed to Politico that the framework could change substantially in the coming weeks or months.
The purpose of these tariffs is to incentivize building semiconductors and other valuable computer components in the US, rather than outsourcing to countries like Taiwan, but the factories required to do so cost billions of dollars to construct and take years to get operational. Tariffs won't magically change that, which means that tech companies, including game console manufacturers, are facing higher bills for components they can't produce overnight in the US. And ultimately, it's consumers who front the cost.
Worse yet, these tariffs come amid a global memory shortage driven by the insatiable demand of AI data centers. Computer components like semiconductors are already getting more expensive; adding aggressive tariffs to the mix will only put further pressure on hardware prices. So, as we inch closer to the $1,000 ceiling, once-affordable gaming hardware is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.
However, while tariffs and the 'RAMpocalypse' continue to push gaming toward becoming an unaffordable hobby, there's an ironic twist to these new plans. If the Trump administration presses on with tariffs on goods that use semiconductors, lobbyists argue that they could slow data center expansion in the US. "This may be the single dumbest way imaginable to pursue American dominance in AI," a tech official who served in the first Trump administration said. "It's like kneecapping yourself at the starting line."
So, while tariffs and the AI boom threaten to make gaming even more expensive, these new measures could also undermine the very tech companies pouring billions of dollars into rapid AI expansion.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/game-consoles-new-tariffs-2026/
