Pre-Ordering Nintendo Switch 2 Early Requires Following Some Rules - Here's What They Are

If anything has become a constant during the last several video game console release cycles, it's been scalpers buying up as much stock as possible at retail and selling the consoles at inflated prices to take advantage of how quickly they were selling out. Most recently, this was an issue coming out of Sony's launch of the PlayStation 5 in November 2020, with PS5 scalpers asking for as much as three to four times the retail price, and it took quite a while before the console was widely available outside of scalper channels or limited-quantity sales events from official resellers. This gambit can backfire badly for the scalpers, as it did with the 2024 PlayStation 5 Pro launch, when demand wasn't there, the consoles were easy to find at retail, and scalpers were left holding the bag. Nonetheless, it's still a significant problem to consider whenever a new console launches.

The original Nintendo Switch quickly became a scalper favorite, as well, following widespread sellouts, as did the NES Classic Edition a few months earlier. This led to speculation in the gaming media that Nintendo was deliberately creating artificial scarcity and emboldening scalpers. Now, though, for the June 2025 release of the newly-announced Nintendo Switch 2? Nintendo has a battle plan too, at least when it comes to the company's direct preorder sales, one that's tied to your Nintendo Switch Online account, but it's so restrictive in terms of who's allowed to order that the response has been mixed at best. 

For the details on how to get in on Nintendo's pre-order opportunity for the Switch 2, we need to hop over to Nintendo's "How to Buy" page for the console. "Invitation emails will be prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis to registrants who have purchased a Nintendo Switch Online membership with a minimum of 12 months of paid membership and a minimum of 50 total gameplay hours, as of April 2, 2025," it reads. "Once invitation emails have been sent to all registrants meeting the priority criteria, invitations will be sent to remaining eligible registrants on a first-come, first-served basis." In addition, "you must have opted in to share gameplay data," which appears to be tied in to how Nintendo is tracking your amount of gameplay hours.

It's easy to see why this move is going to rankle some Nintendo fans. If you're primarily a player of single player games and have no interest in the classic console game collections that come with Nintendo Switch Online and thus have no need to subscribe, then you're not eligible for priority pre-order status. Then the same goes if you hadn't previously opted into sharing gameplay data with Nintendo. Most Switch owners probably don't even remember if they had enabled that option in the first place.

Nintendo will start doling out pre-order links to eligible customers that it selects from the registration pool on May 8, 2025. Further, early pre-order links will go out "periodically" until Switch 2 orders are opened up for all potential customers. However, eager customers in the U.S. may have to wait longer, as Nintendo confirmed to The Verge that it is pausing pre-orders in that market — they won't start on April 9 as originally planned. At the time of writing, the company expects sales in the U.S. to start on schedule beginning June 5, but it remains unclear whether the tariffs spurring this decision will result in a price increase.