Amid Soaring Demand for Nintendo Switch 2, Major Japanese Retailers Are Restricting Pre-Orders to Customers Who Have Already Spent Loads of Money With Them

In the aftermath of the Japanese My Nintendo Store’s massively oversubscribed archetypal lottery for the Switch 2 that received a staggering 2.2 cardinal applicants, each of Japan’s large electronics retailers person been holding their ain pre-order lotteries for the fashionable next-gen console. However, with precocious request expected for an highly constricted fig of units astatine launch, each store has placed strict restrictions connected who tin apply. These measures besides purpose to forestall scalpers and resellers profiting from the Switch 2.

Conditions alteration by store and lottery but astir each necessitate the applicant to beryllium a subordinate of said store and to person spent a definite magnitude implicit the past twelvemonth oregon two. For example, large electronics retailer Bic Camera constricted its in-store lottery to Bic Camera recognition paper holders who had spent implicit 30,000 yen (approx. $207 USD based connected existent speech rates) betwixt April 2023 and March 2025, with its online lottery constricted to those who had spent implicit 50,000 yen ($345).

Similarly, rival Joshin has been restricting its Switch 2 lotteries to Platinum and VIP members of its Smile constituent program. For context, to scope Platinum level, customers indispensable person made a azygous acquisition worthy implicit 150,000 yen ($1,030) wrong the past year, oregon made purchases astatine Joshin connected implicit 5 abstracted calendar days (as highlighted by Japanese quality tract game8). ID checks and limiting entries to 1 per idiosyncratic are besides communal measures employed by Japanese retailers to bounds applicants and safeguard against scalpers.

Covering these restrictions, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun asked Hideki Yasuda, a elder expert astatine Toyo Securities and adept connected the crippled manufacture astir the availability of the Switch 2. Yasuda predicts that Nintendo has astir 800,000 to 1 cardinal units acceptable for the Japanese marketplace upon launch, but it’s apt that request has since ballooned up to astir 5 cardinal units successful Japan alone.

“I deliberation the maximum magnitude of units they (Nintendo) tin hole successful 2025 is astir apt astir 4 million, but this volition not beryllium capable for the console to conscionable request adjacent aft 1 year. There volition apt proceed to beryllium a shortage overseas arsenic well.”

One thing’s for sure, it's not going to beryllium casual to people a motorboat time Switch 2, but if you are based successful the U.S. it mightiness beryllium worthy checking retired IGN’s preorder tips, if you haven’t already.

Photo by Stanislav Kogiku/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

Verity Townsend is simply a Japan-based freelance writer who antecedently served arsenic editor, contributor and translator for the crippled quality tract Automaton West. She has besides written astir Japanese civilization and movies for assorted publications.