Video game consoles won’t be directly impacted by tariffs imposed on imports from China for the time being, a more concrete decision that comes after consoles were granted temporary exemption in the later months of 2019.
The Electronic Software Association confirmed as much to Polygon over email, noting that the United States Trade Representative “has suspended the tariffs on consoles until further notice.”
The ESA statement backs up news shared by the USTR (via Reuters) about the first phase of a trade deal between the U.S. and China amid ongoing trade negotiations. In that release, it was mentioned that categories of goods that had tariffs delayed from September to mid-December, including game consoles, laptop computers, and cellphones, would instead have those tariffs suspended indefinitely.
Console makers Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have openly spoken against those potential tariffs for months before the delay and no indefinate suspension, warning in an earlier open letter that the damage would have an “enormous impact and undue economic harm[…]on the entire video game ecosystem,” including both consumers and the thousands that count themselves among the game industry.