A reader explains the unlikely method he used to pre-order a Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart bundle and why it’s the only real option at the moment.
I have pre-ordered a Nintendo Switch 2, but it was not an easy thing to do. Although a big Nintendo fan I didn’t meet the criteria for a pre-order invite, because I don’t use Nintendo Switch Online much and that has pretty much sealed my doom as far as Nintendo is concerned.
I don’t really blame them. I approve of them trying to get the consoles into the hands of fans first and foremost, not scalpers, but I was hoping that they would switch over to allowing ordinary people to pre-order after a while. Maybe they will but they haven’t yet, although I guess we are a month away at the moment.
The problem is I wanted the Mario Kart bundle, because no matter what everyone says about the general price of the games the bundle means you get Mario Kart World for half price and that’s got to be a bargain in anyone’s book. The thing is the bundle only last till the ‘autumn’ and there’s no clue as to when exactly it’ll stop being sold.
Hearing that the Switch 2 is breaking pre-order records in Japan is great in theory, because I want Nintendo to do well, but if they don’t even have enough stock for their home territory what hope do we have here? Especially as they’re probably trying to dump as much stock in the US as possible at the moment, before something even worse happens with tariffs.
That means the UK and Europe is going to be way down the list of priorities, as usual, and I’m actually kind of surprised they didn’t announce a delay for the release date here. Although I guess that wouldn’t have been very good optics, seeing as none of this is our fault.
These sort of situations aren’t unusual with a game launch but the weird thing is that it’s always the game companies that get blamed, as if they wanted to lose sales by not having enough consoles to go around. It was like that with the PlayStation 5 and I’m sure it’ll be the same with the Switch 2.
The scalpers are always the same too and I can’t lie, but I did look on eBay to see if there was one I could use. But I don’t trust any of them. There’s no guarantee they’re going to get a Switch 2 when they come out and then even if I got my money back I’d be even further behind the curve in actually getting a console.
It’s really hard to say what will happen after June too, because consoles don’t usually launch at that time. Normally you’d expect a ton of stock just in time for Christmas and then quite a wait until more comes in and things get to any kind of normality.
Is that how it’s going to be for Switch 2, will we not get any chance to buy it again till October or sometime? I guess that works out in terms of having it available for Christmas, but it will be pretty weird.
Anyway, those are the pitfalls as I see them and all things I’ve been worrying about over the last couple of weeks. But… I got one anyway. I’d like to say there was a secret or repeatable trick to it but there wasn’t.
I just bookmarked all the shops I could think of and kept checking them when I got a second. I got luck with ShopTo and that was it. I checked right after I made the purchase and they ran out of stock just a few minutes later. So you can imagine my relief, especially as it was the Mario Kart bundle.
So that’s my expert advice to you, for pre-ordering a Switch 2: get lucky. I’m sorry it’s not more practical but I’m just relieved it worked for me.
By reader Onibee
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