U.S. Console Import Records Are Going Dark — Nintendo's Have Been Silent Since January 2023

Excerpt: In ImportYeti's database of U.S. Customs ocean bill-of-lading records, Nintendo of America's vessel manifests carry a "manifest confidentiality" flag spanning February 2023 through October 2026 — a 44-month blackout that covers the entire Switch 2 launch — and the underlying monthly totals bear it out: no Nintendo consignments appear after January 2023 except three stragglers. The same dataset shows the visible console trade thinning, with the other platform holders' U.S. ocean imports running far below their 2025 pace.

The short version

There is a public dataset that lets anyone count how many shipping consignments of game consoles arrive in the United States: the ocean bill-of-lading records that U.S. Customs and Border Protection releases for vessel cargo. Analysts, trade researchers and occasionally journalists mine it to estimate console supply.

For the largest console maker, that dataset goes quiet early in 2023 — and stays quiet through the launch of its current console.

• In ImportYeti's compilation of U.S. Customs ocean bill-of-lading records (database updated 2026-10-07), Nintendo of America's vessel manifests carry a "manifest confidentiality" annotation covering February 2023 through October 2026. OBSERVED FACT.
• The same record's monthly shipment totals for Nintendo of America stop after January 2023 — 25 consignments that month, then no visible months until a single consignment in June 2024, one in June 2025, and three in April 2026. OBSERVED FACT.
• The blackout window covers the Nintendo Switch 2's entire commercial life; the console went on sale on 2025-06-05. INFERENCE.
• U.S. vessel manifests are public, but under 19 CFR 103.31(d)(1) an importer or consignee may ask CBP to keep its "name and address, including identifying marks and numbers" confidential. That is a legal mechanism for exactly this kind of quiet. OBSERVED FACT (regulation).
• The same database flags manifests for Sony Interactive Entertainment America (from November 2025 onward) and, historically, for Microsoft (July 2020 to July 2022) and Valve (August 2023 to August 2026). OBSERVED FACT.

Put plainly: the public paper trail for console imports is not a fixed instrument. It can be switched off consignment by consignment, and for Nintendo of America it has been effectively switched off since the start of 2023 — the moment, as it happens, that its next console's supply chain was being built.

What the record actually contains, company by company

Everything in this table is read directly from the ImportYeti company records for each U.S. importer of record. OBSERVED FACT unless marked otherwise.

Two things stand out.

First, Nintendo's is the only one of the four where the confidentiality flag and the real data agree: the monthly series has a hard hole from February 2023 forward. Second, the flags are not the same thing as silence — Sony's data keeps appearing after the annotation begins, which suggests the annotation tracks a request for confidential treatment rather than a guarantee that every record disappears. INFERENCE. That distinction matters, because it means a confidentiality flag alone is not proof of a blackout; only a genuine hole in the monthly totals is.

Nintendo's hole is genuine.

Why the manifests can go dark at all

The reason this dataset exists is a 19th-century transparency rule, and the reason it has holes is a carve-out in that same rule.

Under 19 CFR 103.31, CBP keeps vessel manifests and provides for their "limited disclosure." The 2020 Federal Register notice that modernised the process spells out the carve-out precisely: "For an inward manifest, an importer or consignee may request confidential treatment of its name and address, including identifying marks and numbers." Requests go to a dedicated mailbox (vesselmanifestconfidentiality@cbp.dhs.gov) or an online portal. OBSERVED FACT.

In other words, an importer of record — exactly the entity "Nintendo of America" or "Sony Interactive Entertainment America" is — can ask the government not to publish who shipped its cargo. Do that and the bill-of-lading trail for a product line thins out without any product ever being hidden. INFERENCE.

The blackout covers the Switch 2 — and that is the point

The Switch 2 went on sale on 2025-06-05. Nintendo of America's visible U.S. ocean-import record ends two and a half years earlier, in January 2023, and the confidentiality annotation begins the following month. OBSERVED FACT.

That means the one public, independent, consignment-level window into how many Switch 2 units were arriving in America — which ports they came through, which factories made them — has been closed for the console's whole life. Anyone citing U.S. customs data to describe Switch 2 supply is, for that window, citing a hole. INFERENCE.

This is not an accusation of wrongdoing. Confidential treatment is a routine, lawful commercial request that many importers make, and Nintendo is far from alone — three of its four major peers show the same annotation somewhere in their records. The point is narrower and more factual: the industry's paper trail has an off switch, and the biggest console maker's is on. INFERENCE.

What the visible data still shows

Where records remain, they show the console business importing less of everything — though the totals are consignments, not units, and each consignment can hold thousands of consoles. OBSERVED FACT (counts); INFERENCE (as a supply signal).

• Sony Interactive Entertainment America booked 577 U.S. ocean-import consignments across January–October 2025 and 295 across January–October 2026, a fall of roughly half. OBSERVED FACT.
• Microsoft fell from 1,152 to 679 consignments over the same two windows. OBSERVED FACT.
• Valve moved the other way — from 3 to 24 consignments — consistent with the October 2026 launch ramp of its Steam Machine and Steam Frame hardware. OBSERVED FACT (counts); INFERENCE (attribution).

The declines line up with everything else the console business spent 2026 telling us: a memory shortage that repriced the bill of materials, price rises on every platform, and hardware sales at their lowest level in more than a decade. INFERENCE. They also line up less romantically with a simpler explanation — see below.

Who the factories are

The vendor tables inside the same records name the actual shippers behind each platform holder's U.S. imports. OBSERVED FACT.

• Sony imports through Hongfujin Precision Electronics (the Foxconn subsidiary in Yantai, China; 1,794 recorded shipments), Weifang Goertek Electronics and Rongcheng Goertek Technology (China; 881 and 461), and Goertek Smart Technology Vina (Vietnam; 209).
• Microsoft imports through Maintek Computer Suzhou (the Pegatron subsidiary; 3,322), Pegatron Vietnam (1,051), and Fugang Electric Xuzhou (Foxconn; 783).
• Nintendo imports through a shipper the record abbreviates to "Pkm" (Yantai, China; 365), Hosiden Vietnam Bac Giang (145), Qingdao Mitsumi Electronics (152) and Zhuhai Mitsumi Electric (111).
• Valve imports through Cheng Uei Precision Industrial (the Foxlink affiliate; 299).

None of this is secret in the ordinary sense, but it is unglamorous data that almost nobody in consumer games media reads. It is also, for three of the four companies, historical: the confidentiality flags mean the most recent years are missing for Nintendo, and thin for Sony.

Two alternative explanations, stated honestly

A disciplined reading has to hold two rival explanations against the Nintendo gap.

1. Entity change. Nintendo could still be shipping heavily to the U.S. under a different importer of record — a subsidiary, a sales entity, or a third-party logistics arm — and the "confidentiality" annotation could simply be flagging that a new entity took over. SPECULATION. This is the most serious alternative, and the record cannot currently rule it out; ImportYeti links records by name, and Nintendo of America's name is the one that falls quiet.
2. Channel change. The gap could reflect a shift away from the ocean carriers and ports this dataset covers — for example, more air freight or a different consolidation regime. SPECULATION.

What would settle it is a second, independent source for Switch 2 U.S. import volumes — a customs-broker filing, a port authority manifest, or a carrier-level record. Until then, the honest statement is the narrow one: in the public bill-of-lading record, Nintendo of America's U.S. imports are not visible after January 2023. OBSERVED FACT.

Why it matters

The console industry spent 2026 fighting over exactly the question this dataset answers — how many machines, made where, arriving when. Tariffs on semiconductors and on Vietnam and Thailand, the memory shortage, and price rises on every platform all turn on supply that is counted, in public, largely through these records.

If the largest console maker's share of that record simply stops in January 2023, then the public cannot independently audit Switch 2 supply — and any analysis that leans on U.S. customs data, including analyses published in good faith, is leaning on a dataset with a quiet hole in the middle of it. That is not a scoop about a hidden product. It is a scoop about a hidden record — and about how easily, and lawfully, one gets made.

Sources

• ImportYeti — Nintendo of America (U.S. import record)
• ImportYeti — Sony Interactive Entertainment America
• ImportYeti — Microsoft (U.S. import record)
• ImportYeti — Valve (U.S. import record)
• 19 CFR 103.31 — Information on vessel manifests and summary statistical reports (eCFR)
• Federal Register — Announcement of Vessel Manifest Confidentiality Online Application (2020-05-22)