The Latest On How Trump's Tariffs Could Impact The Switch 2 And More Of The Week's Top Stories

Yahoo

12-04-2025

This week, all eyes continue to be on the Switch 2, Trump's tariffs, and how the latter could impact the former. With the president putting a 90-day pause on the bulk of his announced tariffs and instead maintaining a 10-percent across-the-board tax, Nintendo is stockpiling consoles in the U.S. in advance of the planned June 5 launch date. In other news, new puzzle game Blue Prince has taken critics by storm, becoming the highest-rated game so far this year, and the developers of No Mercy, a visual-novel-style game with subject matter many find reprehensible, announced that they will be pulling the game from Steam, though they also defended the game in the same announcement. Read on for these stories and more.
Switch 2 preorders were originally supposed to go live today but were halted by Nintendo in the U.S. and Canada after President Trump's latest round of tariffs threatened to torpedo its original $450 price. The White House is now suddenly backing off the most extreme import taxes less than a day after they went into effect. Is the Switch 2 in the clear, or will the latest act of brinkmanship just lead to more questions amid the uncertainty? - Ethan Gach Read More
The studio behind No Mercy, a recently released 3D visual novel featuring non-consensual sex and incest, has announced that it plans to remove the game entirely from Steam after the game attracted controversy online. Valve pulled the game from the United Kingdom version of Steam after a government official slammed Valve for allowing No Mercy to be sold on the storefront. - Zack Zwiezen Read More
Blue Prince is an ingenious first-person adventure about exploring a house and uncovering its tantalizingly unexpected secrets. It's already the highest-rated game of 2025 on Metacritic so far, and it also happens to be hitting Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus the day it comes out. - Ethan Gach Read More
The Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set for Magic: The Gathering doesn't drop until June 13, but previously unrevealed cards have already been spotted in the wild after a starter kit seemingly got into someone's hands early. Thanks to the decks inside, fans have now gotten early looks at Steiner from Final Fantasy IX, Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy VII, and a bunch of other favorites from the Square Enix RPG. - Ethan Gach Read More
All of the cool stuff revealed in last week's Switch 2 Direct was quickly overshadowed by worries about its higher prices, including $450 for the console and Mario Kart World being Nintendo's first $80 game. Then the company halted pre-orders in the U.S. in the face of unprecedented tariffs that could push prices even higher. Now Nintendo has gone on record to defend those prices and claim tariffs weren't part of the original arithmetic. - Ethan Gach Read More
Hollow Knight Fans have been waiting years for the metroidvania's sequel Silksong to appear at a new gaming showcase alongside an actual release date. Last week, the game finally was briefly featured during the Nintendo Direct for Switch 2, but a 2025 launch window wasn't all fans were blessed with. A new screenshot over on Nintendo Japan website offers a new glimpse of a scene we also saw in the original 2019 reveal over six years ago. - Ethan Gach Read More
Marathon is Bungie's first new project in over a decade. It feels like a lot is riding on the extraction shooter as the studio behind Halo and Destiny becomes slowly subsumed into the larger PlayStation portfolio. But in the meantime, all we know is Marathon continues to be one of the coolest-looking shooters around and is about to get its big gameplay showcase reveal later this month. - Ethan Gach Read More
The Switch 2 is shaping up to be one of the messiest console launches ever in the U.S., at least from Nintendo's point of view. The company's new $450 console is set to come out on June 5, but it's also being forced to navigate a chaotic circus around tariffs that could torpedo the rollout at any moment. Bloomberg now reports that the Mario maker has been diverting Switch 2 shipments to stockpile them in the U.S. before tariffs potentially skyrocket again, but even in the current environment some analysts believe Nintendo would be selling the console at a potential loss. - Ethan Gach Read More
On April 2, Nintendo revealed a lot about the Switch 2 via a big Direct. And in the days since that event we've learned more about the Switch 2 via statements from Nintendo, interviews, and more. For example, did you know that Nintendo confirmed Friend Codes are back, or that the Switch 2 carts will taste disgusting? - Zack Zwiezen Read More
Big gaming showcases shouldn't just be for major console makers and Geoff Keighley, which is why the team behind Dead Cells' ongoing support, Evil Empire, launched the Triple-i Initiative last year. The event puts the spotlight on smaller projects ahead of Summer Game Fest season and returned this year with updates on a whopping 36 games, including world premieres for a few that look really cool. - Ethan Gach Read More
For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.