Kotaku⁠72%

Nintendo Says It Doesn’t Owe Customers Anything After Increasing Switch Prices For Tariffs It Didn’t Have To Pay ⁠81%

By John Walker⁠73%

7/21/2026, 11:55:04 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Unattributed Quote, and Negativity Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 24.4% saturation with 112 hits. Analysis detected 1,256 faulty-reasoning hits from 459 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 72.8% and a BS Rank of ⁠81% (3,996 of 20,515 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 80.50% of the article peer group.

Back in April we learned that a group of Nintendo customers were launching a class action suit against the Switch maker, claiming they are now owed money after Nintendo increased hardware prices in response to Trump’s since-declared-illegal tariffs. 
Nintendo is now, as first reported by <em>Game File</em>, trying to get that suit thrown out of court before it even reaches a judge. 
The suit, filed by two Americans—Gregory Hoffert and Prashant Sharan—claimed that since Nintendo is entitled to recoup the tariff fees it was forced to pay that have since been overturned by the Supreme Court, it therefore owes back the difference to customers who paid the inflated prices for Switch 2 controllers and the original Switch. 
Essentially: if Nintendo got its money back, then why shouldn&#8217;t we? 
The pair&#8217;s lawyers argued that Nintendo has recovered the tariff costs twice over, once from the U.S. government, and then again from its customers. 
Now Nintendo is asking the court to dismiss the proposed class action suit, stating in a filing that customers are &#8220;not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs.&#8221; <em>Game Developer</em> reports that the filing continues, 
Nintendo or one of its retailers set a price for each product, and consumers decided whether that price was worth paying. 
Those who bought Nintendo’s products received exactly what they bargained and paid for: a console, game and/or accessory at a price to which both parties agreed. 
The Nintendo lawyers claim that the company did absorb some of the tariff costs, saying, &#8220;Unlike many of its market peers, however, Nintendo did not simply increase each product’s price by the amount of tariffs it paid on that product or impose an across-the-board tariff surcharge. 
&#8221; It also attributes the price hikes to other factors including memory shortages and shipping costs. 
According to <em>Game File</em>, the filing also states, 
The whole thing reads like a dressing down, and it&#8217;s hard not to consider the original lawsuit a touch hopeful. 
Nintendo sold the products for what it decided they cost at the time, and it&#8217;s hard to think of another occasion when a change in financial conditions after the fact would then be owed to a customer. 
I&#8217;m sure there are legal complexities, but I&#8217;m also pretty sure companies get to charge whatever they want for stuff. 
At the same time, Nintendo was very determined not to pay those tariffs, suing the federal government at the time to try to get them blocked, so it is kinda sucky they get to be paid back double out of American customers&#8217; wallets. 
We'll let you know whether this case to dismiss is successful. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 2.4%John Walker: 1.7%Kotaku: 4.1%Confirmation Bias2.4%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 1.7%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 13.3%John Walker: 2.2%Kotaku: 4.0%Availability Heuristic13.3%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.6%Kotaku: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.8%Kotaku: 1.0%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 4.4%John Walker: 1.5%Kotaku: 1.7%Overconfidence Bias4.4%This article: 12.9%John Walker: 5.4%Kotaku: 5.8%Framing Effect12.9%This article: 9.4%John Walker: 0.8%Kotaku: 0.9%Loss Aversion9.4%This article: 12.6%John Walker: 0.6%Kotaku: 1.1%Status Quo Bias12.6%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.4%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 1.3%Kotaku: 2.7%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 4.4%John Walker: 1.2%Kotaku: 3.4%Pessimism Bias4.4%This article: 18.1%John Walker: 17.8%Kotaku: 13.4%Negativity Bias18.1%This article: 10.0%John Walker: 1.3%Kotaku: 2.0%Self-Serving Bias10.0%This article: 5.7%John Walker: 0.7%Kotaku: 1.5%Fundamental Attribution Error5.7%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 1.4%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.3%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 7.0%Kotaku: 3.7%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.2%Kotaku: 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.2%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 5.2%John Walker: 1.5%Kotaku: 2.3%Recency Bias5.2%This article: 1.7%John Walker: 0.1%Kotaku: 0.6%Primacy Effect1.7%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.9%Kotaku: 1.3%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.7%Straw Man0.0%This article: 20.7%John Walker: 2.1%Kotaku: 2.5%Appeal to Authority20.7%This article: 8.1%John Walker: 3.1%Kotaku: 2.2%False Dilemma8.1%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.5%Kotaku: 0.9%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 12.0%John Walker: 0.6%Kotaku: 0.2%Circular Reasoning12.0%This article: 17.6%John Walker: 5.7%Kotaku: 9.2%Hasty Generalization17.6%This article: 4.6%John Walker: 0.2%Kotaku: 0.2%Red Herring4.6%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 1.5%Kotaku: 1.0%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 13.7%John Walker: 3.4%Kotaku: 5.4%Appeal to Emotion13.7%This article: 6.3%John Walker: 0.3%Kotaku: 0.8%Begging the Question6.3%This article: 3.5%John Walker: 0.3%Kotaku: 2.4%Post Hoc (False Cause)3.5%This article: 9.4%John Walker: 0.9%Kotaku: 0.2%Tu Quoque9.4%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.7%Kotaku: 0.6%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.5%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 8.7%John Walker: 2.0%Kotaku: 4.4%Anecdotal8.7%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.4%Kotaku: 2.0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 8.1%John Walker: 1.0%Kotaku: 0.4%Personal Incredulity8.1%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.3%Kotaku: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 18.3%John Walker: 2.0%Kotaku: 2.8%Unattributed Quote18.3%This article: 8.9%John Walker: 2.4%Kotaku: 1.7%Quote-first Misdirection8.9%This article: 24.4%John Walker: 30.8%Kotaku: 14.8%Biased Writer Voice24.4%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.3%Kotaku: 2.1%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.7%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 9.4%John Walker: 0.4%Kotaku: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias9.4%This article: 0.0%John Walker: 6.7%Kotaku: 3.6%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

459 words analyzed.

Speakers

No attributed speakers were identified in this analysis.

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Analysis

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