While Nintendo has at last confirmed it’s working on a new console, with a proper reveal scheduled to take place before the end of the 2025 fiscal year (so, by March 2025), there’s still a lot we don’t officially know about the Nintendo Switch 2, such as its actual name. One thing Nintendo has shared, though, is that it’s aiming to have enough stock to meet demand in order to prevent scalping.
During a recent Q&A meeting with investors, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said the best measure for combating scalping is “to produce a sufficient number to meet customer demand” (as translated by IGN). The company is also looking into other countermeasures “that can be taken to the extent allowed by laws and regulations.” Essentially, Nintendo is taking the possibility of Switch 2 resales very seriously. In fact, a Nikkei report from earlier this alleged Nintendo had internally delayed the new console’s launch to early 2025 to ensure the company has enough stock at launch.
Making sure every potential customer can buy a Switch 2 seems like a pretty obvious idea, but it’s good to know Nintendo is taking this into account. Scalping is a frustrating practice since it involves individuals hoarding a fresh, new item, and then selling them at even higher prices to desperate customers struggling to find one at retail because of the aforementioned hoarding. It’s people taking advantage of the scarcity they themselves inflicted, and we’ve seen it happen with the launches of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, which had already suffered from low stock since they came out during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Switch wasn’t immune to this either, with its limited launch in 2017 resulting in many a console appearing online at inflated prices. Ideally, Nintendo will manage to avoid this with the Switch 2, and customers won’t feel any pressure to rely on scalpers. It’d be even better with steps are taken to prevent scalpers from buying multiple consoles in the first place.
Nintendo has admittedly struggled with production of the current Switch in recent years due to a semiconductor shortage, but Furukawa has said this issue has now been resolved. As such, there shouldn’t be any production issues with the Switch 2: “At this time, we do not believe that the shortage of components will have a significant impact on the production of the successor model.”
Hopefully, Nintendo is successful with its efforts to avoid stock shortages, especially given how much hype there is surrounding the Switch 2. People have been expecting a new Nintendo console for a while now since the Switch itself is over seven years old, which, in console terms, is ancient. Yet the Switch has kept selling well enough to keep Nintendo happy. The company even wants to push at least 13.5 million Switches by the end of March 2025.
