Although there are no official sales figures yet, a series of crowded midnight launches point to the Nintendo Switch 2 being an instant hit.
It’s always been obvious that the Nintendo Switch 2 would be a hot commodity, with pre-orders routinely selling out over the last several weeks. And with the console officially launching on Wednesday night, it’s going to be even harder to come by.
As of Thursday morning, retailers like Argos and Amazon had fresh stock for last minute customers but they’re already starting to run out, with no indication of when more will come in.
It’s too soon for Nintendo to share official sales numbers, but everything points to the Switch 2 being a big success and completely selling out, with Currys claiming they’ve already sold 30,000 in the UK alone.
Certain retailers in the UK, the US, and Japan have kept up the time-honoured tradition of the midnight launch, and it seems those have been popular too.
Smyths, for instance, held midnight launch events across its stores and photos of its Wallsend North Tyneside location show how massive a queue it attracted by the time the doors opened at one minute past midnight.
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Meanwhile, Currys only held the one midnight launch event, at its store in Oxford Street, and despite Switch 2 sales being limited to those who already pre-ordered it, the event still attracted its own lengthy queue of fans and cosplayers.
A quick look through social media shows similar results in the US, with one person on X saying that over 200 people queued up at their local GameStop.
As for Japan, it is unsurprisingly dealing with major stock shortages. If you recall, the My Nintendo Store already ran out of pre-orders in April, prompting Nintendo itself to apologise for failing to meet demand.
According to Yahoo News Japan (as translated by IGN), other Japanese retailers, such as Toys ;R Us Japan and Don Quijote, are experiencing the same thing, only offering Switch 2s to lottery winners.
How many units has the Switch 2 sold?
At the time of writing, no sales numbers for the Switch 2 have been given. However, Nintendo has previously said it hopes to sell approximately 15 million units this fiscal year, i.e. before next April.
That’s a target analysts are confident Nintendo will meet, including Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal, who points to how quickly pre-orders sold out worldwide.
‘In the UK, pre-orders closed down in a minute, in France the same thing and in the US there were multiple crashes online … people had to queue up overnight just so they could pre-order [in stores],’ Goyal told the Financial Times.
The Financial Times also reports that some analysts think the Switch 2 will perform even better than Nintendo thinks and sell over 20 million units, meaning it would outperform the Switch 1, which sold just under 15 million units in its first fiscal year.
In addition, Nintendo’s share price has reportedly risen 32% this year thanks to the Switch 2, which may offset the impacts of US president Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
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