Following Nintendo of America’s announcement of Switch 2 pre-orders and price changes, the retailers have made their own announcements.
GameStop shared this message on Twitter:
“Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders begin in-store when doors open April 24, 2025 and online at 11:00 AM EST on the same day.
Midnight releases will be held in all stores June 5, 2025 at 12:00 AM EST / June 4, 2025 at 9:00 PM PST.
GameStop will offer a Transfer and Trade Program to seamlessly upgrade to Switch 2 without losing data. More details to come.”
If GameStop does go on to get lines for these midnight launches for the Switch 2, it definitely won’t be the same as it used to be. The famous video game retailer started a downturn that led to them closing over 200 stores all the way back in 2019, even before the pandemic started.
Since that time, the company became a meme stock and tried to relaunch their online business as well as a retro gaming business. Maybe the retailer will bounce back like Barnes & Noble did, but it hasn’t happened in time for the Switch 2’s launch.
As shared by Nintendeal, other retailers have shared their pre-order dates. Many gamers who do go to physical locations go to Best Buy, or discount stores like Walmart and Target. So we’ll round those up below:
- WALMART – April 24 at 12:00am ET
- TARGET – April 24 at 12:00am ET
- BEST BUY – No time info yet
Interestingly, Amazon doesn’t seem to have stocks for the Switch 2 consoles or games for the near future. It’s possible that Nintendo deliberately passed on Amazon for several reasons.
The biggest reason, of course, is fear that scalpers and resellers primarily take advantage on Amazon, and Nintendo is looking to hold off on Amazon availability at least until they meet that launch demand and build up sufficient surplus stock as a buffer.
The rumor going around is that GameStop stores will have 100 Switch 2 units. While that’s a healthy number of units, given how less GameStop stores there actually are, this statistically will be less common than non-Americans think.
Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser has more optimistic things to say about the Switch 2 supply. As he stated in an interview, Nintendo had time to build inventory for the console in and outside the US.
We also have reason to believe that there’s a lot more Switch 2 manufacturing that has been moved out of China than the public assumed. So we’re going to have to see if Nintendo has done everything right for a successful launch, but everyone seems to have their plans in order.
