Best Buy has shared the details of their midnight launch for the Switch 2.
As they indicated on their website, they will have a late night store opening on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at 12:01 AM ET. They then shared this intriguing new detail:
In addition to fulfilling pre-orders, most stores will have limited inventory of systems, games and accessories for purchase. Customers will also have the chance for a free Nintendo collectible. Check out our full assortment below.
Limited quantities. One collectible per party.
While they did not specify what these collectibles are, there is a high possibility that these are items unique to Best Buy. The retailer has worked with Nintendo in the past to offer unique physical pre-order exclusives. In the past, Best Buy has offered items like coins, lanyards or acrylic items. So these items won’t be that expensive, but they’ll serve as nice mementos for your memories picking these consoles up.
If GameStop has taken a backseat in recent years, Best Buy remains one of the bigger retailers in the US. These will likely be the sites for many memorable Switch 2 midnight launches around the US, the same way that they had midnight launches for video game consoles in decades past.
It seems that Best Buy also anticipates that there will be sufficient stocks of the Switch 2 to meet pre-orders and have enough left over to sell in-store. It’s possible that Nintendo and video game retailers were acting on the belief that a lot of the earliest pre-orders are fake or suspicious and that those fake pre-orders would throttle their resources. So after they cancel these fake and suspicious pre-orders, there would still be sufficient stock to meet demand.
Of course, there are also different circumstances with each state. Depending on where you live in the US, you may be easily able to get a console in-store on launch day, or you could be seeing long lines and it won’t be possible to get one that way. Nintendo and these retailers are definitely doing the best they can to make sure that scalpers won’t be able to take advantage of Nintendo fans.
If you have a pre-order through Nintendo’s system, you had to pass some really stringent loyalty tests to qualify. Nintendo went on record that they would honor pre-order requests from all of their eligible fans, even after the console’s launch. You’ll want to hold onto this promise just in case shortages hamper the public’s ability to get these consoles after launch.
