Nintendo says it can't meet Switch 2 pre-order demand in Japan

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Nintendo does not have enough consoles to meet the expressed demand for its Switch 2 system in Japan.

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Pre-orders for the Switch 2 go live tonight, but Nintendo has pre-emptively warned Japanese gamers that not everyone who wants to buy a Switch 2 will be able to get one. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa posted a memo apologizing to Japanese gamers, saying that a "significant" amount of users will not be able to pre-order the system.

Over 2.2 million people in Japan expressed interest in buying a Switch 2 directly from Nintendo, but the company won't have enough stock to meet demand. This stat also gives key insight into Nintendo's entrenched userbase, and reveals a key tactic that prevents scalping and also extra revenue--to even apply to pre-order a Switch 2, users must have an active 12-month Switch Online subscription with 50 hours of playtime.

Furukawa's translated note is below:

Hello, this is Furukawa. We have been procuring many materials and proceeding with production in advance so that we can deliver the Nintendo Switch 2 to you. On April 2nd, we announced details about the Nintendo Switch 2 and started accepting applications for the lottery sale on the My Nintendo Store.

As a result, we received an extremely large number of applications, approximately 2.2 million people in Japan alone. However, this number far exceeds our expectations, and far exceeds the number of Nintendo Switch 2 consoles that can be delivered from the My Nintendo Store on June 5th.

Therefore, unfortunately, we expect that a significant number of customers will not be selected when the winners are announced tomorrow, April 24th.

In order to avoid the trouble of those who were not selected in the first lottery sale having to reapply, My Nintendo Store will automatically carry over those who were not selected in the first lottery sale to the second lottery sale. However, even including the quantity for the second lottery sale, we cannot fulfill all of the applications we received. We deeply apologize for not being able to meet your expectations despite our prior preparations.

In response to this demand, we are currently working on further strengthening our production system.

In addition, starting tomorrow, April 24th, game retailers and online stores nationwide will begin accepting pre-orders or lottery sales for the Nintendo Switch 2 console (please check the information of each retailer for details).

The console will also continue to be sold at the My Nintendo Store after the release date (more details will be announced at a later date).

With the cooperation of retailers, we will continue to ship the console and make efforts to get as many Nintendo Switch 2 consoles as possible into your hands.

We plan to continue producing and shipping a considerable number of Nintendo Switch 2 units in the future. We apologize for the delay in our ability to meet your expectations, and we appreciate your understanding.