So Nintendo are controlling the launch with the consoles shipping unusable until the day one update so even if you get the console before the launch date it cannot be used for gaming. So basically there is no advantage to getting it early because the update won't be downloadable until launch day. However I guess there is a chance we might see a teardown before launch day of a retail unit but I guess that is a bit too optimistic. 

Interesting that the console has no useful functionality at all until the official launch day though. I've not heard of anyone doing this before.

Modern gaming. Gotta love it.

You gotta be fucking kidding. Required online to boot your console the first time. That is so fucked and sho2s no confidence in the product. Ya'll are going to be so disappointed a week from now. Mor fuck ups inbound.

Sucks for those who got it early but I personally dont see an issue with this.

They likely did this to prevent people from playing the games earlier than day 1.

Some games may not get the patch that is needed to play on the Switch 2 until the official release date so any early playing could possibly muddle views of a game is actually like.

Actually I wish I had gotten it early, the fact that I have the system in my hands but all I gotta do is wait for it to become officially released, I'd rather have that than having to go on launch day to pick it up from GameStop of all places lol

Oh well. Seems the whole "unopened switch 2" boxed console in 30 years time is going to be worthless.

I wonder if Nintendo's servers will get overloaded with everyone trying to download the firmware update that day so some will have to wait and perhaps a lot of firmware updates will fail downloading part way through?

I wonder what the big reason for Nintendo doing this is with regard what part of the firmware needed a very late update. Maybe Nintendo have been checking for security loopholes in the system trying to make sure there is no back door to piracy in the firmware. The Switch 2 has been so long in development with the T239 Nvidia chipset dated to 2020/2021 which is when Nvidia launched more powerful PC graphic cards based on the same architecture you would think at this point it would be in quite a advanced and refined level of development. I think its just about controlling the experience myself mainly and maybe there is some bad news about the spec that they didn't want people to know about until after launch. Maybe a difference between retail units and the development units that we have seen so far. Maybe battery life will struggle to reach 2 hours in the most demanding games with full screen brightness.

Willing to bet that this is purely a thing for launch units to prevent leakers from having early access to the console. Systems made after the launch period will come with the update pre-installed.

The battery would have exploded in the box by then anyway.

I recall recently someone bought a boxed PSP (Maybe Metal Jesus Rocks on Youtube?), the battery had "expanded" but once replaced it was a brand new device.

But this is also why I prefer the Xbox's approach of using AA batteries.

Its exactly this, but common sense wont stop the clowns to have their moment and babble their nonsense