Nintendo has announced that it will be moving some of the Nintendo Switch's production to Vietnam due to the ongoing trade war between China and the United States of America.
The heated trade war that is taking place between China and the USA is threatening the console game industry, as there are proposed tariffs that could increase the price of imports from China by up to 25%.
In response to the potential increase in production costs, Nintendo is moving some of its console production facilities to Vietnam. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, the same company that Nintendo works with in China owns facilities in Vietnam, so the production of consoles and other peripherals will be moved there in order to avoid the potential tariffs that might be imposed in the future.
Nintendo recently penned a joint letter with Microsoft and Sony to the General Counsel to the United States Trade Representative in order to plead their case, as they believe that the tariffs could deal irrevocable damage to the video game industry, which is increasing in scope every day.
It turns out that Nintendo has more pressing reasons to oppose the tariffs than its competitors, as the company just announced a new handheld version of the Nintendo Switch, called the Nintendo Switch Lite, which is due to be released in September. The next iteration of the Xbox console systems is due to be released at the end of 2020, with a similar release window likely in place for the PlayStation 5, so an increase in costs could potentially make each system too expensive for the average consumer to purchase at launch.
North America is Nintendo's single biggest market and the impending trade tariffs could potentially damage sales of the Nintendo Switch in the next couple of years. It makes sense for the production of the Nintendo Switch to shift to another country in order to avoid the trade war between China and the USA and other hardware developers will likely do the same in the coming months. There is still a chance that an agreement can be reached between Beijing and Washington, but the issue likely won't be resolved anytime soon.
The Nintendo Switch Lite is due to be released on September 20, 2019.