In less than 4 hours as of this article’s writing, pre-orders for the next Nintendo console, the Switch 2, will be going live in the United States. To be more specific, that is for Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart. Amazon US will not have any Switch 2 pre-orders, and GameStop will not be doing pre-orders at midnight. In fact, when pre-orders go live at GameStop is going to heavily depend on whether you order online or actually pre-ordering in-store. Online pre-orders begin at 11am Eastern Time on the 24th, and in-store pre-orders begin on the 24th depending on when your local GameStop store opens its doors.
If you’re in the United States and plan to order from GameStop, there is some good news that may help you with your Switch 2 pre-ordering search. Various GameStop stores have begun informing curious Switch 2 consumers about their local Switch 2 stock. Most of the reports, which come from various ResetEra users, have been via calling their local GameStop stores.
It seems that the Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle is what GameStop has recieved the most of, with some stores reporting that they have as much as double the amount of standalone Switch 2 consoles. As for the standalone Switch 2 consoles, the amount of those seems to vary depending on the store location. Some have reported as few as 10 and as many as 50. For some stores, however, it seems that they are revealing their Switch 2 stock in-store right on the front doors. You can see an example of that, courtesy of Wario64 on social media, down below.
I know that GameStop has done this with other system preorders in the past.
But, I called my GameStop tonight about an hour before they closed and they told me they weren’t allowed to say how many they had. 🙄
I’m gonna get mine after 2 weeks or a month launch. I know the pre-orders is going to be crazy in just hours tonight.
the fear is price spiking later due to tarrifs
They meant the accessories will increase later on. Not the game and the console itself.
I had it in my cart but couldn’t get it to finalize. I then got a text from my bank asking about fraud. I said it was cool, tried it again but the tsrget website was bugging out. In line on best buy now. Was a hope, was never confident in the prospects of getting an online pre-order.
So it isn’t 100 units per store. Maybe including the Mario Kart bundle, it’s nearing 100. There was also information about the trade-in values for Switch 1’s to be at or above $100, but now it’s been reduced to $70 maximum for Switch 1, I don’t know about the other ones.
Managed to get my preorder
Oh you did?
Yeah through Target. I tried brute forcing the purchase button and it finally went through. Was going to order through Walmart because of the free shipping, but it froze on “1 minute” for 30 minutes and now it’s saying the preorder is still available there too, figures. I was expecting this to be another Wii or PS5 situation but thankfully it wasn’t.
It feels like your hitting the panic button and trying to force the machine to take out the receipt. At least you didn’t worry too much dude. In the UK region. the pre-orders sold out very fast online and I believe it could happen in the US as well tomorrow in Nintendo’s history. I’m planning on pre-ordering mine maybe at GameStop or Walmart between May 24th to May 30th on one of those days to get my hands on the Switch 2 along with Mario Kart World. It could be my last Nintendo console.
Thankfully it was painless. PS5 launches would crash sites to the point where I couldn’t even load the page, and that was because EVERYONE was ordering online. I think the tariff scare actually helped to make things easier too. It would’ve been a whole lot worse if there wasn’t a delay and website traffic had to accommodate more than just Americans. I was surprised the sites didn’t crash on me.
You know I’m very surprise that the tariff situation making things much easier since their won’t be any further delays on the system whatsoever and etc. I’m glad the site didn’t crash on you otherwise you will get a PC virus on your computer which is kinda bad. What about the Xbox Series X launch? How did that go?
Never bought the series X since I think buying both a Microsoft and Sony console during the same gen is redundant, but I imagine it was the same case with that too. No option to buy from physical retail, so people were overloading sites and using shop bots. People don’t realize that brick and mortar stores are still very important.
Honestly, but many people doesn’t seem to care about it. They just want to buy and grab their favorite gaming console. When did they started using shop bots?
Uh… You don’t get viruses from a website crashing under heavy traffic.
Honestly you can if you don’t have too much programs open in your PC.
11:30pm PST and I just bought a bundle from Best Buy. I’m happy but also like should we be worried for Nintendo? Why aren’t these sold out?
The first Switch wasn’t sold out right away either. I recall ordering mine at like 3 AM.
The original Switch was easy to pre-order. People sincerely excepted it to flop so nobody was experiencing FOMO.
You can tell that’s not the case with Switch 2 no matter what all the grumpy people online say.
Ordered mine from Walmart. Had to verify it wasn’t a fraudulent charge after cancelling one order because it took from my bank account instead of my card because my card was blocking it. I’m surprised I made it through after fixing all of that.