Caved in and decided to preorder in case trade war BS raises the price again in the future. Had Best Buy, Target, and Walmart ready to go. Best Buy was useless this time around (bought my PS5 at launch from them). Target jerked me around for 40 minutes with hundreds of attempts to check out before they canceled my order outright. I was about to call it a night when I suddenly reached the front of the digital line at Walmart. Once there they handled the order like pros. Looking forward to hopping on the track in early June.

Funny to see this thread alongside the Brazilian one to show the extreme opposites of Switch 2 prices' reception lol

Analyzing why the transition to Switch 2 seems to go so much smoother than previous console transitions for Nintendo:

* Still a big active user base on Switch 1 (Unlike the Wii to Wii U transition).

* The Switch hybrid concept has clear staying power, people enjoy what the Switch 1 and thus Switch 2 offers.

* Uncertainty about future price increases through tariffs have likely led to declining anger when it comes to the Switch 2 price.

* Nintendo now has more avenues to keep connection with customers when they transition to new hardware, they don't have to start from scratch.

* Nintendo brand probably stronger than ever due to Switch era success plus movies and theme parks.

Same. I tried Target first, but it wouldn't let me buy it and kept giving me errors, so I ended up using Walmart, and I got it! I did have trouble at first, but after using my PayPal account to buy it, it worked!

Honestly, I don't think I'll ever preorder a console again. It was really stressful. 😅

I completely agree, and let's not forget that Nintendo now has a single console for all their first-party games.

Additionally, with the Switch breaking sales records and most first-party titles performing strongly, Nintendo has the resources to invest in many new projects.

Phew, that's the first reason I did not want to bother to try getting a preorder online. It seems more a hassle than just hoping to your nearest brick&mortar store(if available) and asking for said pre-order availability.

That's how I got mine, easy peasy.

This should have the biggest launch ever for a Nintendo console and perhaps it has a shot at the biggest launch ever for a console in general. With the past few years conditioning people to expect the price of something like this to never go down and potentially even increase down the line the first couple years could be truly massive.

The situation seems to be much the same for other retailers; apparently one store was allotted 320 units for launch, yet one customer who preordered there says they were number 6000 in line.

A smaller store had 125 consoles, but so far over 900 preorders.

https://www.gonintendo.com/contents/47913-japanese-retailers-see-massive-switch-2-stock-allotments-but-demand-still-far