Nintendo Switch 2 Preorders See ‘Overwhelming' Demand, Frustrations for Hopeful Buyers
An attendee plays Mario Kart World by Nintendo Switch 2 during the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience at the ExCeL London international exhibition and convention centre in London, Britain, April 11, 2025.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. preorders for the Nintendo Switch 2 kicked off shortly after the clock struck midnight Thursday. But chaos soon ensued amid high demand.
Scores of consumers hoping to be among the first to own Nintendo's latest gaming console — set to officially launch June 5 — jumped online to try and snag a preorder. And while some lucky buyers found success, many others ran into frustrating delays or saw listings quickly sell out at some participating retailers.
Anxious shoppers took to social media to share long wait times, screenshots of error messages and carts that suddenly went empty amid a flurry of transaction requests — or, in some cases, apparent confirmation emails that were soon followed by notices about orders being canceled.
Nintendo acknowledged the 'very high demand' in an update about those interested in purchasing the Switch 2 from its own My Nintendo Store. The company said it would be 'working diligently to fulfill orders,' but noted that delivery by June 5 was not guaranteed — urging those who want to increase their chances of getting the console at the launch date to visit a participating retailer.
'The excitement around this online preorder was incredible,' Walmart, one of the retailers also offering Switch 2 preorders, said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press. Walmart launched its early listings at 12 a.m. ET and confirmed that they 'sold out quickly due to high demand.'
Customers will have another chance to buy the consoles on June 5 — when preorders are also set to be delivered by, the company added.
Best Buy and Target also rolled out their preorders overnight, but soon showed listings as 'out of stock' or 'currently unavailable' early Thursday. And hours later, GameStop got in on the action — launching both in-person preorders when its stores opened and an online offering that went live at 11 a.m. ET. Still, those listings appeared to be unavailable within minutes and some customers reported confirmation delays.
'We're seeing overwhelming demand for Switch 2, which is causing some site issues,' GameStop Help wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly after 11:30 a.m. ET. The company later shared that its preorders had sold out online, although it would 'continue to squash bot and duplicate orders to reopen inventory.'
GameStop confirmed that its in-store preorders, however, were still available by Thursday afternoon.
It wasn't immediately clear what total capacity each retailer had for Switch 2 preorders. Nintendo, GameStop, Target and Best Buy did not immediately respond to requests for further comment Thursday.
The sizeable (and speedy) demand for Nintendo's Switch 2 isn't surprising. The new gaming console has been marketed as bigger and better than its predecessor of eight years past — with highly-anticipated features including an interactive chat, larger screen and new games.
Still, the Switch 2's rollout arrives at an uncertain time for much of the industry due to new tariffs implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump and responding retaliation from targeted countries, notably China. Economists have warned that the steeper levies will result in higher prices on a range of consumer goods relying on a global supply chain today, including electronics.
The Switch 2's baseline launch price is $449.99 — significantly higher than the original Switch's $299 price tag. While new bells and whistles may account for a sizeable portion of that hike, experts have previously noted that the new import taxes are also a contributor.
And U.S. preorders for the Switch 2 were already delayed earlier this month — ahead of Trump's steepest levies, most of which have now been postponed, going into effect.
Preorders were originally slated to go live on April 9, an update from Nintendo shared by GameStop notes, but were pushed back to 'assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.' Nintendo later confirmed that some Switch 2 accessories would see price adjustments — but maintained that its previously-announced baseline price for the console would remain the same.
Super Mario creator Nintendo Co. is banking on the Switch 2 to revive demand for its gaming consoles, with its older predecessor recently losing momentum. In February, the Kyoto, Japan-based company said it expected to sell 11 million Switch consoles for its full fiscal year ending in March, lower than its initial projection of 12.5 million.
Nintendo reported profit of 237 billion yen ($1.5 billion) for the first nine months of its latest fiscal year, down 42% from the same period the year prior.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
SoraNews24
an hour ago
- SoraNews24
Mario Paint arrives for Nintendo Switch Online, finally can reach its potential after 34 years
Ahead-of-its-time game's time has finally come. As part of its Nintendo Switch Online service for the Switch and Switch 2, Nintendo gives subscribers access to a library of Nintendo Classics, noteworthy titles from the company's 8, 16, and 64-bit eras. There's a highly appealing nostalgia in playing video games that laid so much of the foundation for what the hobby is today, but the newest old-school addition to the Nintendo Classics lineup is one that's only now going to get the chance to realize its potential for the first time. When Mario Paint first came out in 1992 for the Super NES/Super Famicom, it was a pretty bold experiment by Nintendo. In addition to letting players create illustrations and simple animations, it included tools for making music tracks as well, with a clever format that was easy to intuitively grasp, even for people who had no background in musical composition or reading sheet music. But there were a couple of problems with the concept, largely due to the technology of the day. This being the pre-home Internet era, the Super NES had no online connectivity. If you wanted to show your friends the cool picture you'd spent hours and hours painting, or have them listen to the catchy song you'd composed, they'd either have to come over to your house, or you'd have to take your Mario Kart cartridge over to theirs (assuming your friends also owned a Super NES). Oh, and unless you wanted to take an extended break from creating, you'd have to arrange those meetups quickly, since the cartridge had a very limited capacity for storing the art and music you'd crafted. Games in the Nintendo Classics series are presented just as they originally were, so there are no additional save slots within the Switch Online Mario Paint , at least in the conventional in-game sense. However, Nintendo Classics games do allow the player to utilize a number of save states, effectively multiplying the number of illustrations you'll be able to preserve in their still-editable status. More importantly, though, with the Switch and Switch 2 having built-in hardware capabilities for taking and exporting screenshots and gameplay videos, suddenly the sky's the limit in terms of not only saving completed Mario Paint projects, but in sharing them online with people around the world. ▼ The Japanese Nintendo Classics Mario Paint preview features some different video clips than the English one. But why is Nintendo just now getting around to adding Mario Paint to the Nintendo Classics catalog? Because it was designed to be used with the SNES Mouse add-on, and the recently released Switch 2 is the first Nintendo console to have mouse capabilities as part of its standard hardware, via the edge of its detachable Joy-Con controllers. As for Switch (i.e. Switch 1) users, they can still join in on the Mario Paint fun by connecting a compatible USB mouse, as there's no official mouse for the system. That's also an option for Switch 2 users, if they prefer a conventional mouse to the Joy-Con. Mario Paint is playable right now, having been added to Nintendo Classics as soon as it was announced, since with 34 years of pent-up creativity, there's a lot of art to be made. Source: Nintendo Top image: Nintendo Insert images: Nintendo, YouTube/Nintendo of America, YouTube/Nintendo 公式チャンネル ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Tokyo Weekender
a day ago
- Tokyo Weekender
Nintendo Confirms That Mario and Princess Peach Are Just Friends
Just imagine: You're a heavily stereotyped Italian plumber born in Japan who, rather than fixing toilets, has spent 40 years of his life repeatedly rescuing the same damsel in distress. One morning, you wake to find that she's set her Facebook relationship status to single, and the world loses their mind, mourning a relationship that, beyond a kiss on the cheek, never existed. Your inbox is blowing up, blame flying in every direction. You've got nine missed calls from your brother and a Snapchat from a fire-breathing tortoise that you can't bring yourself to open. You then pull on the only pair of overalls the world has ever seen you in and go out to save her once again, because that's all you were programmed to do. This is exactly what Nintendo have done to their golden boy, Mario, blindsiding him via text. But while this revelation may have come as something of a shock to the world's most famous tradesman, it also raises the question: How much of this is our fault? The Breakup Text Our story begins on the Nintendo Today app, a pocket calendar of sorts that allows users to customize their phone with Nintendo-related themes while also delivering updates on their consoles, games and trivia pertaining to their most beloved characters. In a message — since removed from the app due to the daily nature of its updates, but immortalized on X via screenshots — Nintendo officially stated: 'Princess Peach and Mario are good friends and help each other out whenever they can.' It's unclear what prompted Nintendo to distribute this information, and in the days since, it appears that both Peach and Mario have declined to comment on the situation. What has been apparent, though, is how heavily invested people were in a relationship that was never confirmed to exist — a revelation that suggests that we, collectively, decided on one of two things: Either Mario was only putting in the effort because he and Peach were lovers, or that the act of him saving someone who had been kidnapped was deserving of more than just thanks. Were We Led On? Thankfully, I don't have any idea what it's like to be kidnapped by a menacing tortoise and locked in a castle surrounded by lava and ruin. At the same time, I have no trouble imagining someone, regardless of orientation, giving their rescuer a kiss on the cheek upon realizing that they were being saved from a life of torturous tortoise marriage. That was all Peach ever did upon meeting her savior. As we all grew up watching Mario's eyes turn to hearts in response at the end of each game, we decided that they were an item — as if it would have been more normal for her to shake his hand and ask if they could stop at McDonald's on the way home. Of course, I'm playing contrarian here. Of everyone I've spoken to about this, not one person was of the belief that Mario and Peach were just friends — myself included. The story of a woman in danger being rescued by her embattled lover is a tale as old as storytelling itself. Batman, Indiana Jones, The Bodyguard , Drive . They and countless others all did it and continue to do it, and critics and audiences alike will always pay to see it. It's a time-worn formula that, when done well, works. So much so that we probably can't help but go looking for it. Nintendo just let us fill in the blanks with Mario and Peach. The issue now is that those blanks no longer exist. What Was Really Lost Ultimately, I think the real reason this became an international topic of interest is because Mario and Peach have been a part of all our lives in one way or another; when something so enduring is unexpectedly and unnecessarily altered, we can't help but have a reaction to it. Nintendo's announcement doesn't change anything. The games will still play out the same way (unless this is foreshadowing a title in which Mario goes on some kind of bachelor's trip to Vegas, mushrooms included (Nintendo, if you need a writer, I'm available)). But what it does do is alter people's perception of something that they more than likely associate with the better times in their life and memories that they created for themselves. Whether it's in books, films or video games, we need stories. But perhaps just as much, we need gaps in these stories — parts we can fill in for ourselves, which allow us to put our own perceptions and experiences into a work, making it our own in a roundabout way. Nintendo's declaration of Mario and Peach's platonic relationship may have given us a chance to examine how we fill in those gaps. But maybe it's better not to know everything. Perhaps we'd all prefer to guess and speculate about these fictional characters and their relationship to one another. Now, for better or worse, we need not wonder any longer. Related Posts What Super Smash Bros Character Are You Based on Your Zodiac Sign? How To Find Tokyo's Secret Nintendo Bar Inside the Nintendo Museum: Everything Revealed So Far
Tokyo Weekender
4 days ago
- Tokyo Weekender
PokePark Kanto, a New Pokemon Theme Park, Is Opening in Tokyo in 2026
Starting in early 2026, fans will finally have a real-world place to catch 'em all. PokePark Kanto, the first-ever permanent outdoor Pokemon theme park, is set to open inside Yomiuri Land in Inagi City, Tokyo. Set against the backdrop of Tama Hills, this 26,000-square-meter attraction will offer a fully immersive experience where Pokemon come to life all year round. List of Contents: Inside PokePark Kanto: What We Know So Far When Can You Visit? Related Posts Image courtesy of ©2025 Pokémon. ©1995-2025 Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc. Inside PokePark Kanto: What We Know So Far About Its 2026 Opening If you've been following Pokemon since the beginning, the park's name will sound familiar. It's a double homage — both to the original Red, Blue and Green games , which are set in the fictional Kanto region, and to its real-life location in Tokyo's Kanto area. So far, no actual footage of the park has been released. Instead, the official announcement video revealed a beautifully crafted miniature diorama of the park, offering a charming preview of its layout and atmosphere. The park will be divided into two main zones: Pokemon Forest and Sedge Town. Image courtesy of ©2025 Pokémon. ©1995-2025 Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc. Pokemon Forest Pokemon Forest is a roughly 500-meter nature walk through varied terrain — think grassy paths, tunnels, slopes and trails. You'll be able to observe and find your favorite Pokémon mingling in groups, hiding in the underbrush or roaming freely around the terrain. Image courtesy of ©2025 Pokémon. ©1995-2025 Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc. Sedge Town Serving as the park's social hub, Sedge Town centers around a Primarina-themed fountain. This area will include a Pokemon Center, Pokemart and a Pokemon Trainers' Market, where guests can shop for themed merchandise. A Sedge Gym will give aspiring trainers a chance to test their skills, while a Pokemon Greeting Parade will let visitors of all ages meet a variety of Pokemon up close. Two larger attractions are also in development — rumored to include a Pikachu-themed ride and a merry-go-round — though details haven't been confirmed yet. When Can You Visit PokePark Kanto in 2026? Tickets are expected to go on sale in stages starting in fall 2025, with pricing and reservation details to be announced closer to the park's grand opening in early 2026. In the meantime, keep the momentum going — hop on the train for the 2025 Pokemon Stamp Rally , or brush up your Pokedex by getting to know some dark Pokemon lore . Related Posts Everything You Need To Know About the 2025 Pokemon Stamp Rally Pokemon Green: The Game the Rest of the World Never Got Pokemon With Surprisingly Dark Backstories
