The U.S. Supreme Court has invalidated tariffs imposed during the Trump administration that had been driving up the cost of imported electronics, including major gaming consoles.
The court ruled that the tariffs were enacted under a law that doesn’t actually give the president that power. The Trump administration had used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to justify the import taxes, but the Supreme Court said that law doesn’t authorize broad tariffs on consumer goods.
Gaming hardware was caught in the crossfire. The now-invalidated tariffs affected imports of the Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation 5, with those costs typically passed down through the supply chain to consumers.
But don’t expect console prices to drop overnight, or at all for that matter.
Retailers are still sitting on inventory they bought at tariff-inflated wholesale prices. Companies are also hesitant to announce price cuts that would make consumers wait for deals instead of buying now. The market doesn’t move as fast as court decisions.
The Supreme Court allowed these tariffs to stay in effect during the appeals process through emergency orders, meaning the economic impact continued for months while the legal battle played out. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a dissent that legal watchers say hints at other ways the administration could reimpose tariffs using different laws.
And that’s exactly what trade experts expect to happen. The administration has other options on the table, including Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Both could legally justify new tariffs even though IEEPA is now off-limits for this purpose.
There’s another wrench in the works. A global shortage of RAM and storage components is hitting the electronics market hard right now. Demand from AI data centers is eating up memory supplies, which could drive component prices higher regardless of tariff policy. That means even if import taxes go away, the bill of materials for consoles and other gaming hardware might stay elevated.
Major importers and retailers are already filing lawsuits to recover the tariffs they’ve paid. These companies want refunds for duties collected under what the Supreme Court now says was illegal authority. But those recovered funds aren’t likely to flow back to consumers who paid higher retail prices.
The case that reached the Supreme Court was brought by Learning Resources, Inc., though the implications stretch across the entire electronics import industry.
The practical impact for gamers remains unclear. The tariffs are legally invalid, which removes one pressure point on console pricing. But between existing inventory, component shortages, and potential new tariffs under different legal authority, the path to lower hardware prices is anything but straight.
