Thread: 8BitDo no longer shipping to US from China due to tariffs

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8BitDo has announced it is temporarily pausing shipments to the US due to tariffs. The popular third-party controller manufacturer is based in China, the country that has been hit with the highest tariffs by the Trump administration. 8BitDo is one of the largest gaming manufacturers to take this step, but it's demonstrative of what could become a trend.

Here is the full statement posted on 8BitDo's website: "Due to U.S. tariffs, only products from our U.S. warehouse are available for shipping to the United States. China warehouse shipping is temporarily paused."

US tariffs on products exported from China now sit at roughly 124%. Rather than asking US consumers to cover cost increases that, in some cases, would more than double the price of goods, 8BitDo and other manufacturers have made the decision to suspend shipments. This isn't really surprising. 8BitDo, for instance, is known for making great controllers for Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox, and mobile devices for budget-friendly prices. If a controller that has sold for $50 for years is suddenly $100 or more, the number of buyers would plummet and 8BitDo's brand identity would be damaged, perhaps irrevocably. Blaze Entertainment, creator of the Evercade retro handhelds and consoles, also recently paused shipments due to tariffs.


Good thing I don't need need anything from them right now but just to give everyone a heads up.
 
Damn, that sucks. The newest version has a purple one I kinda want. But it's probably better to just buy the new Switch 2 Pro controller instead.
 
Yeah China is involved in a lot of bad stuff, but there's a lot of good products for gamers coming out there in recent years. 8bitdo controllers, and a lot of retro handhelds like the Retroid Pocket 5/Odin 2 Portal and stuff like that that are great alternatives to a Switch or Steam Deck with incredible emulation support.
 
Yeah China is involved in a lot of bad stuff, but there's a lot of good products for gamers coming out there in recent years. 8bitdo controllers, and a lot of retro handhelds like the Retroid Pocket 5/Odin 2 Portal and stuff like that that are great alternatives to a Switch or Steam Deck with incredible emulation support.

This is kind of why the current order needs to be destroyed though.

We used to get cool gadgets like this made everywhere, all over the western world, not concentrated in a single hostile nation with a near total monopoly on creative industrial output.

I'm not saying these aren't excellent products, or that it doesn't suck that yanks are losing access to them, but we also have no idea what excellent products would have existed in a universe where America had kept its own such local industrial output intact, to cater to the same market in competition, which would have in turn significantly increased wealth and spending power for the majority.

This entire situation is a choice between short term pain and long term disaster. It sucks either way, but this is the lesser of two evils.
 
For anyone who wants to actually understand the impact of tariffs on consumer electronics there's a great series of interviews by Gamers Nexus. The companies themseleves (Corsair, Cooler Master, Hyte, ibuypower, Thermal Grizzly and others) explain the direct effect of these tariffs and why the usual sound bites that get touted on setting up factories in the US aren't simple.



I'm going more into a politics discussion now but I think if these tariffs remain the average American will face significant problems over the coming months and years due to higher prices and lower or non existent supply and that will be reflected by a shift in support away from republicans in the next election as people feel their quality of living erode. Democrats can campaign on the basis of revoking tariffs and bringing down prices for everyone. So realistically brands can spend the next 3-4 years focusing on growing non US market share and then come back once the tariff stuff ends if there's still opportunity.

To bring it back to gaming, I think a company like 8bitdo is incredibly unlikely to establish a US factory assembling their devices:
1. They need to find a factory that can handle a contract like that, or build one from scratch. Both very difficult. I can't imagine they are shipping enough product to justify their own factory.
2. For years they will need to import all the components which get hit with tariffs anyway because components can't be sourced locally right away.
3. If they want to source components locally then it's 10+ years for component manufacturers to setup business. But these manufacturers are unlikely to do so because of the cost.
4. The capital expensive from everyone involved is huge, the tooling cost alone will be significant and if they import existing tooling then guess what? Tariffs!
5. Labour will be far higher meaning the products will be more expensive.

The truth here is that every American will pay more for everything. That's likely to mean stuff is still Chinese made and you pay a tariff or if its locally made you will still be paying more because the same product costs more to produce locally. It's impossible to make products at the same cost in China and the US, that's why everyone went to China in the first place.

I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't attempt to increase manufacturing in the US but rather that if that's your goal then instituing tariffs is not the way to do it. You need a 15+ year plan with huge amounts of capital support at every level from the raw material harvesting, refinement, component fabrication, assembly, packaging, transport and logistics. It's a mammoth undertaking and not something that will be fixed by simply taxing every other countries products.
 
For anyone who wants to actually understand the impact of tariffs on consumer electronics there's a great series of interviews by Gamers Nexus. The companies themseleves (Corsair, Cooler Master, Hyte, ibuypower, Thermal Grizzly and others) explain the direct effect of these tariffs and why the usual sound bites that get touted on setting up factories in the US aren't simple.



I'm going more into a politics discussion now but I think if these tariffs remain the average American will face significant problems over the coming months and years due to higher prices and lower or non existent supply and that will be reflected by a shift in support away from republicans in the next election as people feel their quality of living erode. Democrats can campaign on the basis of revoking tariffs and bringing down prices for everyone. So realistically brands can spend the next 3-4 years focusing on growing non US market share and then come back once the tariff stuff ends if there's still opportunity.

To bring it back to gaming, I think a company like 8bitdo is incredibly unlikely to establish a US factory assembling their devices:
1. They need to find a factory that can handle a contract like that, or build one from scratch. Both very difficult. I can't imagine they are shipping enough product to justify their own factory.
2. For years they will need to import all the components which get hit with tariffs anyway because components can't be sourced locally right away.
3. If they want to source components locally then it's 10+ years for component manufacturers to setup business. But these manufacturers are unlikely to do so because of the cost.
4. The capital expensive from everyone involved is huge, the tooling cost alone will be significant and if they import existing tooling then guess what? Tariffs!
5. Labour will be far higher meaning the products will be more expensive.

The truth here is that every American will pay more for everything. That's likely to mean stuff is still Chinese made and you pay a tariff or if its locally made you will still be paying more because the same product costs more to produce locally. It's impossible to make products at the same cost in China and the US, that's why everyone went to China in the first place.

I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't attempt to increase manufacturing in the US but rather that if that's your goal then instituing tariffs is not the way to do it. You need a 15+ year plan with huge amounts of capital support at every level from the raw material harvesting, refinement, component fabrication, assembly, packaging, transport and logistics. It's a mammoth undertaking and not something that will be fixed by simply taxing every other countries products.


Yep. I don't think we will see a lot of factories returning. Our government isn't great with long term planning due to how the country is pretty evenly split and term limits. Most of these companies will just sell elsewhere, Republicans get wrecked in the midterms and then Dems change things back in 4 years. Why would a company spend billions building a factory here (which will take several years) when political power changes every few years and things get reversed.
 
We used to get cool gadgets like this made everywhere, all over the western world, not concentrated in a single hostile nation with a near total monopoly on creative industrial output.

Much like the situation with Russia, the primary reason it's hostile to you is that you are hostile to it.

And the primary reason to have the production of cool things, whatever they are, be concentrated in this or that country, is that it lets those cool things be produced cheaply, using the strengths of whichever country is making them. It's the cornerstone of economic relations - countries trade because different countries are better at making different things.

But sure, switch to locally made everything. We certainly learned the same lesson. Isn't it funny how most of the world consumes entertainment media made in a single hostile nation with a near total monopoly on creative entertainment output?
 
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For anyone who wants to actually understand the impact of tariffs on consumer electronics there's a great series of interviews by Gamers Nexus. The companies themseleves (Corsair, Cooler Master, Hyte, ibuypower, Thermal Grizzly and others) explain the direct effect of these tariffs and why the usual sound bites that get touted on setting up factories in the US aren't simple.



I'm going more into a politics discussion now but I think if these tariffs remain the average American will face significant problems over the coming months and years due to higher prices and lower or non existent supply and that will be reflected by a shift in support away from republicans in the next election as people feel their quality of living erode. Democrats can campaign on the basis of revoking tariffs and bringing down prices for everyone. So realistically brands can spend the next 3-4 years focusing on growing non US market share and then come back once the tariff stuff ends if there's still opportunity.

To bring it back to gaming, I think a company like 8bitdo is incredibly unlikely to establish a US factory assembling their devices:
1. They need to find a factory that can handle a contract like that, or build one from scratch. Both very difficult. I can't imagine they are shipping enough product to justify their own factory.
2. For years they will need to import all the components which get hit with tariffs anyway because components can't be sourced locally right away.
3. If they want to source components locally then it's 10+ years for component manufacturers to setup business. But these manufacturers are unlikely to do so because of the cost.
4. The capital expensive from everyone involved is huge, the tooling cost alone will be significant and if they import existing tooling then guess what? Tariffs!
5. Labour will be far higher meaning the products will be more expensive.

The truth here is that every American will pay more for everything. That's likely to mean stuff is still Chinese made and you pay a tariff or if its locally made you will still be paying more because the same product costs more to produce locally. It's impossible to make products at the same cost in China and the US, that's why everyone went to China in the first place.

I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't attempt to increase manufacturing in the US but rather that if that's your goal then instituing tariffs is not the way to do it. You need a 15+ year plan with huge amounts of capital support at every level from the raw material harvesting, refinement, component fabrication, assembly, packaging, transport and logistics. It's a mammoth undertaking and not something that will be fixed by simply taxing every other countries products.


Louis Rossman also made a great video on the subject, specifically focusing on how the little guy is most at risk of getting fucked:

 
Yep. I don't think we will see a lot of factories returning. Our government isn't great with long term planning due to how the country is pretty evenly split and term limits. Most of these companies will just sell elsewhere, Republicans get wrecked in the midterms and then Dems change things back in 4 years. Why would a company spend billions building a factory here (which will take several years) when political power changes every few years and things get reversed.

Beyond that, never ever underestimate the immense greed of the shareholders and the people at the top of these companies. Which, ironically, is exactly how America's production capabilities (or lack thereof these days) got to where theyre at now. "We can generate more profits by kicking production overseas? Hell yeah brother lets do it". What incentive is there for these companies to now drop untold amounts of money setting up production in the U.S. just to have a more difficult time maintaining the profit margins theyve had for decades? As time goes on the whole idea seems more and more retarded tbh, though I suppose it's par for the course with how Trump tends to operate. More so smashing with a sledgehammer as opposed to skillfully and methodically sculpting a future that's plausible. Hopefully it all works out in the end I guess.
 
Yep. I don't think we will see a lot of factories returning. Our government isn't great with long term planning due to how the country is pretty evenly split and term limits. Most of these companies will just sell elsewhere, Republicans get wrecked in the midterms and then Dems change things back in 4 years. Why would a company spend billions building a factory here (which will take several years) when political power changes every few years and things get reversed.

It's not about bringing factories back. It's about making the tariffs fair. Bringing factories back was never going to happen. These companies aren't going to come here and pay a living wage when they can pay slaves in third world countries nothing to make their products and then democrats can pretend they're doing the US a favor by continuing to support those slave labor practices in other countries.
 
But that's literally Trumps m.o. right now, he's always said his plan is to "bring manufacturing back to the US", but it seems as if he's got the cart in front of the horse here the way hes going about it no?

Every president promises things they know can't be done. They've all done it. Bringing manufacturing back to the US would take decades. He'd be long dead by the time we ever saw the results. He knows this. Everyone knows this. The idea is just to level the playing field. We can't keep forking out shit loads of money on tariffs while everyone pays us less. It's wrong. The idea is to get the tarrifs in line with what we're paying.

I honestly have no clue if it will work but what we've doing in the past hasn't?
 
Yep. I don't think we will see a lot of factories returning. Our government isn't great with long term planning due to how the country is pretty evenly split and term limits. Most of these companies will just sell elsewhere, Republicans get wrecked in the midterms and then Dems change things back in 4 years. Why would a company spend billions building a factory here (which will take several years) when political power changes every few years and things get reversed.

But that's literally Trumps m.o. right now, he's always said his plan is to "bring manufacturing back to the US", but it seems as if he's got the cart in front of the horse here the way hes going about it no?


I grew up in Michigan hearing "those manufacturing jobs will never come back", and while they didn't return en masse to Michigan largely due to our Democrat leadership and union stranglehold, those automotive factories did in fact come back to the USA and have continued coming back for the last 20 years.

Short term job gains aren't really the goal anyway. It's about cutting our reliance on global supply chains, which matter very very much to countries like China and places in Europe, but not so much to the USA. It's kinda funny how over reliant other countries are on global trade so they assume USA is too. The USA's export to gdp percentage is half or 1/3rd of other countries like France, Australia, China, UK, etc
 
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I grew up in Michigan hearing "those manufacturing jobs will never come back", and while they didn't return en masse to Michigan largely due to our Democrat leadership and union stranglehold, those automotive factories did in fact come back to the USA and have continued coming back for the last 20 years.

Short term job gains aren't really the goal anyway. It's about cutting our reliance on global supply chains, which matter very very much to countries like China and places in Europe, but not so much to the USA. It's kinda funny how over reliant other countries are on global trade so they assume USA is too. The USA's export to gdp percentage is half or 1/3rd of other countries like France, Australia, China, UK, etc

I suppose the tricky part going forward is to have future administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, on the same page with the same vision after these four years are up. It also makes you wonder how much could be accomplished if say, this was his first term and he was guaranteed 8 more years. As it stands he needs to keep people fired up for the Republican way cause man what a waste all this would be if the Democrats (or an opposing Republican) gets in four years from now and is just like "yeah that was fun but Ive got other plans".
 
The factories ARE returning. The problem is snapping the zoomers and millennials out of the decades long funk of being lazy and consuming cheap Chinese shit.

I don't blame them for being lazy as it's what our society turned into. "They do jobs Americans don't want to do." was the biggest pile of corpo bullshit poured on the working population. That shit NEVER existed when I was 15/16. You were HAPPY to take a shit job and make 5 bucks an hour. I used to get that check and go buy a Genesis game BLIND. No reviews, no message boards. Just box art.

But the corporations love cheap labor and moved all out shit out of the US. OUR cities became ghost towns.
 
Relying on a brutal totalitarian state to get cheap goods is certainly a choice...

How is relying on a brutal imperialist state to get expensive goods any better?

I'll take the brutal totalitarian state with the cheap goods any day of the week. At least the wrongs they do, they do over there, rather than coming with them to our doorstep.
 
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Every president promises things they know can't be done. They've all done it. Bringing manufacturing back to the US would take decades. He'd be long dead by the time we ever saw the results. He knows this. Everyone knows this. The idea is just to level the playing field. We can't keep forking out shit loads of money on tariffs while everyone pays us less. It's wrong. The idea is to get the tarrifs in line with what we're paying.

I honestly have no clue if it will work but what we've doing in the past hasn't?

But you're not forking out shitloads on tariffs for the most part. The way Trump framed things was based on a formula drawn from assessing outstanding trade deficits between the US and other countries. Do some countries impose import tariffs or place restrictions on goods? Sure, but nowhere near the astronomical levels that were presented on Independence Day.

With the EU for instance, Trump put a 20% tariff on all EU goods. However, EU Tariffs on the US are at most 1-2% on certain goods. A lot of people in the US bang on about VAT (Value Added Tax) being added, thinking that it is some form of Tariff, but everyone pays VAT whether they are selling goods made in the EU or outside the EU. It's kind of akin to your State Sales Tax.

The fundamental problem is that more often than not, many companies are driven first and foremost by the quarterly return, which is all about maximising profits, so people squeeze the costs by outsourcing and juice the revenue, which ultimately makes a lot of rich people richer, but that doesn't then translate into actionable investment.

For every Elon Musk, who does put his money to work, there are 50 thousand who aspire to be like Warren Buffett, sitting on a fat wad of cash, accumulating more. To what end? How about put those billions to work in R&D projects?
 
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there are 50 thousand who aspire to be like Warren Buffett, sitting on a fat wad of cash, accumulating more. To what end?

From what I as an outsider know of life in the US, it's probably for the off chance they slip and bang their head in the shower, and have to call an ambulance. :p
 
But you're not forking out shitloads on tariffs for the most part. The way Trump framed things was based on a formula drawn from assessing outstanding trade deficits between the US and other countries. Do some countries impose import tariffs or place restrictions on goods? Sure, but nowhere near the astronomical levels that were presented on Independence Day.

With the EU for instance, Trump put a 20% tariff on all EU goods. However, EU Tariffs on the US are at most 1-2% on certain goods. A lot of people in the US bang on about VAT (Value Added Tax) being added, thinking that it is some form of Tariff, but everyone pays VAT whether they are selling goods made in the EU or outside the EU. It's kind of akin to your State Sales Tax.

The fundamental problem is that more often than not, many companies are driven first and foremost by the quarterly return, which is all about maximising profits, so people squeeze the costs by outsourcing and juice the revenue, which ultimately makes a lot of rich people richer, but that doesn't then translate into actionable investment.

For every Elon Musk, who does put his money to work, there are 50 thousand who aspire to be like Warren Buffett, sitting on a fat wad of cash, accumulating more. To what end? How about put those billions to work in R&D projects?

Weren't the widespread tariffs implemented to prevent China from circumventing the tariffs placed on them? I think once China gets on board, the tariffs will be a non issue. But who knows?
 
Weren't the widespread tariffs implemented to prevent China from circumventing the tariffs placed on them? I think once China gets on board, the tariffs will be a non issue. But who knows?

Honestly who the fuck know what the plan is. It seems to change depending on which way the wind is blowing from what I can tell. Maybe there is some method to the madness, but I'm just watching from the sidelines to see how it shakes out over the coming months. Still, this is a subject best discussed in the Global Economics Thread in World versus gaming.
 
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I suppose the tricky part going forward is to have future administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, on the same page with the same vision after these four years are up. It also makes you wonder how much could be accomplished if say, this was his first term and he was guaranteed 8 more years. As it stands he needs to keep people fired up for the Republican way cause man what a waste all this would be if the Democrats (or an opposing Republican) gets in four years from now and is just like "yeah that was fun but Ive got other plans".

Either way it'll be up to the voters to stick with the pressure regardless of which party and politician are in office. It's not like republicans are guiltless in these economic woes… most of em folded over and went along with whatever Biden wanted during his administration
 
Much like retro gaming, I'm so glad I bought everything I could possibly need before prices went up, lol.

One thing people need to keep in mind, and I'm sure it's been brought up in the thread, but this is exactly what US manufacturers have been dealing with for decades. Tariffs on OUR products are too high for these companies to sell abroad. This is exactly why I fully support Trump and Bessent with their trade deal efforts. It's gonna be painful but the potential benefits are absolutely worth pursuing.
 
How is relying on a brutal imperialist state to get expensive goods any better?

I'll take the brutal totalitarian state with the cheap goods any day of the week. At least the wrongs they do, they do over there, rather than coming with them to our doorstep.

Imperialist? Who? Russia?

No Western country could be rightly termed "imperialist" outside our few escapades in the sandbox. Maybe Israel?
 
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Imperialist? Who? Russia?

No Western country could be rightly termed "imperialist" outside our few escapades in the sandbox. Maybe Israel?

Your 'sandbox' appears to be planetary in scale.
screenshot_66.png
 
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Imperialism to me implies we control the country.

So we control the entire world it appears.

/me looks at Europe and Ukraine fanatically performing ritualistic sepukku against Russia while United States reap the benefits
>_>
<_<

You've long since learned that actual control is both impossible and impractical. Now you just install points of leverage, and use economic and political pressure to keep countries in line, like a pusher threatening to withhold product from his clientele. Except you're also an arms dealer who profits off of the same clientele's fighting. And a telemarketer who constantly tries pushing everyone into ways of thinking you want. And more, and more besides. Loan shark, HOA agent, there aren't enough hated professions in my reference pool to properly describe it.

United States used to be a good country. But it decided that the world belongs to it, and it's become a worse dictator than any that it's claimed to have toppled since then.
 
/me looks at Europe and Ukraine fanatically performing ritualistic sepukku against Russia while United States reap the benefits
>_>
<_<

You've long since learned that actual control is both impossible and impractical. Now you just install points of leverage, and use economic and political pressure to keep countries in line, like a pusher threatening to withhold product from his clientele. Except you're also an arms dealer who profits off of the same clientele's fighting. And a telemarketer who constantly tries pushing everyone into ways of thinking you want. And more, and more besides. Loan shark, HOA agent, there aren't enough hated professions in my reference pool to properly describe it.

United States used to be a good country. But it decided that the world belongs to it, and it's become a worse dictator than any that it's claimed to have toppled since then.

Yeah, sure it has. (No it hasn't). It wields so much control that dickless European billionaire elites have been busy funneling all the money out of it over the last several decades while influencing our politics at every turn. We aren't even sure if Trump's re-election was a victory of the people or a product of the binary political extremes that have been fracturing us since at least 9/11.

Somebody thinks the world belongs to them and they've set up their political parties all across the west. Maybe that's USA, but it doesn't appear to be We the People.
 
/me looks at Europe and Ukraine fanatically performing ritualistic sepukku against Russia while United States reap the benefits
>_>
<_<

You've long since learned that actual control is both impossible and impractical. Now you just install points of leverage, and use economic and political pressure to keep countries in line, like a pusher threatening to withhold product from his clientele. Except you're also an arms dealer who profits off of the same clientele's fighting. And a telemarketer who constantly tries pushing everyone into ways of thinking you want. And more, and more besides. Loan shark, HOA agent, there aren't enough hated professions in my reference pool to properly describe it.

United States used to be a good country. But it decided that the world belongs to it, and it's become a worse dictator than any that it's claimed to have toppled since then.

Yeah I do get your drift.

To play devil's advocate however, I think that is simply part and parcel of being a country the size/power of the US. We are absolutely going to affect the global economy and our culture trickles down to just about every industrialized nation.

If we're going to play the imperialism blame game, I would direct my ire at Britain for starting this shit. We tried to be sovereign and stay out of world affairs and got dragged into it by Europe in WW2.

Hell, we wouldn't even exist if it weren't for their imperialism.
 
Yeah I do get your drift.

To play devil's advocate however, I think that is simply part and parcel of being a country the size/power of the US. We are absolutely going to affect the global economy and our culture trickles down to just about every industrialized nation.

If we're going to play the imperialism blame game, I would direct my ire at Britain for starting this shit. We tried to be sovereign and stay out of world affairs and got dragged into it by Europe in WW2.

Hell, we wouldn't even exist if it weren't for their imperialism.

Huh? America was officially neutral right from the start of wwii and didn't get involved through a declaration of war until Pearl Harbour occurred. You had the lend-lease thing (and even reverse lend lease) but in no way did Europe drag the US into wwii. You could get into speculation about how Roosevelt was aiming to join the war but wasn't sure that the public would be into another war, but then Pearl Harbour obviously solved that conundrum, but it still wasn't because Europe dragged the US in.
 
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Huh? America was officially neutral right from the start of wwii and didn't get involved through a declaration of war until Pearl Harbour occurred. You had the lend-lease thing (and even reverse lend lease) but in no way did Europe drag the US into wwii. You could get into speculation about how Roosevelt was aiming to join the war but wasn't sure that the public would be into another war, but then Pearl Harbour obviously solved that conundrum, but it still wasn't because Europe dragged the US in.

That was the Pacific front. Churchill guilt tripped Roosevelt into supplying Britain and eventually sending troops over as well. I didn't explain myself clearly I guess.

Once we got involved on the European front is when we decided "hey why not put up some bases around this place... seems unstable", then we got involved with the formation of Israel... and here we are.
 
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