Ah, scalpers. An ‘occupation’ so hated by players at large, it almost warrants the somewhat gruesome name. You wouldn’t think a retail plan of “buy stuff off the shelves, then sell at a markup” would be all that effective – but in a world of limited supply, all it takes is a critical mass of people to artificially jack up prices for the common fan.
Scalpers have been the bane of shiny new releases before, and the idea of limited pre-orders is a perfect storm for them. But it seems Nintendo has a trick up their sleeve – one designed to get the Nintendo Switch 2 into the hands of players (real ones) as easily as possible.
Nintendo intends to give pre-order priority to certain Switch players only. Through your Nintendo account, you can register your interest and get in early, even before the scalpers get access to the “add to cart” button.
“Invitation emails will be prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis,” Nintendo explains on their website, “to registrants who have purchased a Nintendo Switch Online membership with a minimum of 12 months of paid membership and a minimum of 50 total gameplay hours, as of April 2, 2025.”
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So, not everyone will be able to benefit from this policy, but that’s by design. In theory, the sort of person who’d meet these requirements are actual fans of Nintendo and their upcoming console. Scalpers – the ones who just buy this sort of thing to make a profit – likely won’t fit the mold.
That said, this is not a complete solution by itself. No doubt there will be some scalpers who play just enough Mario Kart to slip through Nintendo’s defenses and masquerade as an eager fan. But as far as filters go, killing 99.9% of germs seems like a pretty effective measure.
Nintendo Has Learned Its Lesson From Sony’s Mistakes
It’s been hard to forget the abject insanity around PS5 scalping, back when that console first released. It was a bit of a perfect storm of high demand and low availability, even despite subsequent releases.
For the PS5 Pro, Sony had the bright idea of limiting which fans even had access to pre-orders, and clearly, Nintendo was taking notes. Their new plan is pretty similar to Sony’s old one, so Nintendo’s not walking an uncharted course here.
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The exact figures are different – Sony wanted at least 30 hours of playtime from its early-access pre-order buyers, whereas Nintendo wants 50 – but in an ideal world, the end result is the same, if not better.
Nintendo doesn’t want people to buy the Nintendo Switch 2 through scalpers. No middle men, they want to take your money directly. And if you register your account with them, you won’t have to shove money into your screen for very long.
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