In an business already tanking a bunch of hits, filled with layoffs and studio closures, the Japanese video games business appeared to be an exception in 2025—as famous by an analyst final month, 5 out of eight main publishers and studios hit all-time share value highs initially of this 12 months, with their solely actual subject being a lack of employees.
Nicely, the tariffs imposed by america have begun to place a cease to all that, it appears. Final week, the Trump administration imposed “reciprocal” tariffs throughout the globe. Japan is about to endure a 24% tariff that’ll go into impact April 9—which has naturally created an enormous dent within the inventory market.
As identified by Japanese business analyst Dr. Serkan Toto of KantanGames on X, a lot of those self same eight corporations have endured enormous inventory market losses.
“It is Monday 10 am in Japan, the place Japanese recreation shares presently react to those insultingly dumb tariffs like so,” Toto writes. Over the course of the day, VGC247 proceeded to maintain observe of stated shares till the market closed. Right here had been the ultimate numbers for April 7:
- Nintendo: -7.85%
- Sony: -10.4%
- Capcom: -6.61%
- Bandai Namco: -7.37%
- Sq. Enix: -5.62%
- Sega: -7.29%
- Koei Tecmo: -5.41%
It must be famous, once more, that the hike to 24% is not but in impact—however baseline tariffs around the globe of 10% occurred after midnight on April 5. You could be questioning why these tariffs are impacting individuals who solely publish and develop videogames like Sq. Enix—bodily copies of video games are more and more irrelevant, in any case—however it must be famous that any tariff that applies to bodily items goes to have knock-on impacts to digital companies as properly.
Corporations like Nintendo and Sony are somewhat extra intuitive, as a result of additionally they make consoles—just like the Swap 2, which has delayed pre-orders to America over the tariffs—however something performed on these consoles is sure to develop dearer, as properly. And it is not simply consoles: PC elements’ll really feel the warmth, too, even with exemptions for semiconductors in place.
As talked about within the article I simply linked, a worldwide financial system additionally manufactures its elements… properly, worldwide. PC Gamer’s personal Jacob Ridley explains: “When a semiconductor is manufactured after which packaged right into a separate system, it may very well be topic to a unique tariff with out exemption, i.e. inside an add-in card, pc or server rack.”
VG247 can also be proper to level out that the US spends an enormous quantity on videogames—$46 billion in income in 2024, as in comparison with Japan, which spent round $16 billion. This disparity additionally can not help issues—the takeaway being that certainly one of gaming’s largest spenders is about to be spending a complete lot much less on gaming.
In the end, it is a nightmare internet of trigger and impact, the place the precise affect of those tariffs—so ‘fastidiously’ and ‘surgically’ utilized that the Trump administration has, uh, imposed a tariff on an uninhabited island of penguins and seals—is logistically unattainable to keep away from. On the very least, the Japanese video games business is not alone on this—even board video games are seeing a closing finish to the tabletop growth consequently. Sadly, we’re all in for some very fascinating occasions.
