Trying to buy a Nintendo Switch 2 in Japan broke my brain, but I loved it

As I write this from Tokyo, it’s 30 degrees centigrade (for all you Fahrenheit folks, that means really rather hot). It’s bucketing down with plump, round raindrops that could take your eye out if you’re not careful. It’s a concoction of meteorological ingredients I never expected to last for so long, especially coming from London.

It is, however, the perfect weather for me to plop down on my sofa, crank up the air conditioning, and play some video games. And luckily for me, I finally have my hands on a Nintendo Switch 2, something that’s far more difficult to do in Tokyo than you’d ever expect.

Yet, despite the weather absolving me of any guilt for my bone-idle thumb twitching, I feel a tad empty. I ride around Mario Kart World, amazed by its colors, but I want something more. I drive around Night City, crashing into almost everything, and wonder why Nintendo still uses digital triggers. I play and play, but a great big hole remains in my routine, no matter which of the best Switch games I turn to. That’s because, believe it or not, I miss trying to get a Switch 2 in the first place.

Trying to buy a Switch 2 in Japan feels harder than getting a mortgage or picking up every item in Cyberpunk 2077. It’s a maelstrom of membership programs, loyalty points, purchasing history, and bureaucracy, all of which feed into a lottery. Even if you fulfill a store’s requirements, you only earn the right to enter a lottery, and then you probably won’t win anyway.

In the weeks before the Switch 2’s launch, countless fan accounts popped up, sharing details of various lotteries or the one-off, first-come-first-served units that would sell out in less than a dozen seconds. These folks detailed all the upcoming lotteries, their entry deadlines, and their announcement dates. They’re the reason I managed to get one, but it took a lot of pain to get there.

Starting in April, I applied to the MyNintendo Store and Amazon lotteries. Both of these rolled over previous entries, so I’m still entered in every subsequent lottery to this day. Other places announced lotteries around the launch date, and I applied to any that didn’t require purchase history or loyalty points, including Suruga, Edion, and Nojima. With all that, I felt pretty confident I would get one.

When launch day arrived, I didn’t feel much urgency. I’m very slow at reading Japanese, and the console here is JP-only, which has its downsides. I wasn’t even sure if my UK eShop games would be accessible on the new Switch, so I wasn’t stressed about losing any lotteries.

Still, the low-stakes gamble of having the right to buy an expensive piece of tech was a definite thrill. Each morning, I’d check for lottery rejection emails. It was like the opposite of a job hunt, getting rejected for the right to spend money, not make it.

A few days later, I messaged a Twitter user from the UK who had a JP Switch. “Hey, can you access and play your UK digital games on this JP-only Switch?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

That’s when everything changed. The region-locking concern vanished, and my desire for the console shot through the roof. I have around 300 games on my original Switch, and I had to make sure I could play them on the new one, even if the menus were in Japanese. So, I kept searching for more lotteries, including those also offering some of the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories, but there was a problem: they all required something.

• “Must be a member before March 28th, 2025.”
•  “Must have a purchase history of at least ¥10,000” (that’s around $70).
• “Must be a gold, platinum, or ultimate member.”

Every store had different rules, and since I had only moved to Tokyo three months ago, I satisfied none of their demands. I continued applying to the few lotteries that didn’t require anything of me, but those were few and far between.

As time passed, I grew restless. Everyone online was arguing about the Switch 2, but I just knew I needed it. I went to a Yodobashi Camera store in Ueno to see if I could get lucky. Of course, like everywhere else, I couldn’t enter their lottery, and they didn’t have any units lying around to give to a random guy. But they did have a demo unit.

I played Mario Kart World. I played as Mario. I came in first place. I loved it.

As I left, I picked up a free Nintendo Switch 2 magazine and read it on the train home. My desire was growing rapidly. I really needed this console. Before long, I became truly desperate, checking out scalped units on Mercari (Japan’s answer to eBay). They weren’t that steep – only about $70 more than the $350 retail price here in Japan – but I didn’t feel confident buying from random sellers.

Then, I saw a unit for sale on Yahoo Shopping as part of a bundle. I add it to my cart, and my heart races. I click to pay – and nope, out of stock, sorry. I check again an hour later and see another bundle in stock, but when I add it to my cart and try to pay, it’s out of stock again. I repeated this process a dozen times over the next few days. I was losing my mind.

I didn’t feel too bad, though. A quick look at social media revealed that lots of people were also ripping their hair out trying to get a console. My personal pick for Switch 2 lottery alerts, Switch2Nyuka, even shared their lottery history, saying, “I hope this brings you some comfort,” before listing all the places they had applied to and failed:

• Amazon (x15)
• Rakuten Books (x2)
• Don Quijote (x2)
• GEO
• Book Off
• Furuichi
• WonderGOO
• Pokémon Center
• My Nintendo Store (x3)
• Seven Net
• Ito-Yokado
• Famima Online (x2)
• Bic Camera (in-store)
• TSUTAYA (x2)
• Edion

Another user shared a more despairing message: “I don’t even want a Switch 2 anymore. This world is so unfair. It’s ridiculous that someone who would just resell it gets chosen, but I, who have been loyal to the My Nintendo Store, am not. It’s truly absurd. People who bought it elsewhere and also got selected in the My Nintendo Store lottery are jerks. You should properly cancel your entries. They really don’t understand other people’s pain. There are so many people who don’t show any empathy.”

Around two weeks after launch day, my obsession reached a fever pitch. I checked Docomo Shopping’s units, and they were in stock. I added them to my cart, pressed pay, but got no dice. Yet I noticed the units were being restocked every 10 minutes or so. The instant they came back in stock, they’d vanish again. So I decided to be patient. I sat, staring at my phone, refreshing the Docomo Shopping page every five seconds. I did this for over an hour. My partner began to hate this.

The next morning, I was refreshing the page again when my partner woke up. She told me I needed to stop because I was never going to get one. I told her it would be fine; I would win one. She wanted to help, so I asked if there were any shops from the handy lists shared by the Japanese Switch 2 hunting community that she could apply to for me, since she probably had a membership or purchase history.

Joshin? No. Yamada Denki? No. Toys R’ Us? No. Rakuten Books? No. We went through everything on the list, and it was all no after no after no. Until Geo. How about Geo? We applied to Geo.

A few days later, we won the right to buy a Switch 2 at Geo. It was unbelievable. We went to the store to collect it. My partner asked the person selling us the Switch 2 how many they were selling, wondering if we got lucky or if there were a lot of units behind the counter. She said something in Japanese that I didn’t understand, but she then looked at me and said, “very lucky.”

Indeed, I was very lucky. Why? Like that Twitter user shared, some mega fans are despairing over this lottery system, feeling cheated out of the right to buy their favorite company’s new thing. It’s probably been their favorite company since they were a kid. And now they’re just miserable.

Is it better to all rush to the store and be sad that you didn’t get there before it sells out? Or is it better to make a game of the experience, piling high the paperwork to make it seem like everyone was getting a fair shot, when in reality, it’s pure chance? Folks out here still don’t have a Switch 2, even if they’ve got the highest membership rank, or countless loyalty points, or a rich and hefty purchase history. And yet I got one. I got very lucky.

So, whether the process of getting the Switch 2 is improved by the lotteries, I don’t know. I do know, and know well, the mind-numbing dullness of applications, however. And I really know the massive high of getting the winning email. It was all a blur of endless forms to fill out, dead links to follow, and overwhelmed servers. And if I hadn’t gotten a Switch 2 now, I would be here bemoaning this awful system. But because I got lucky, I actually miss it all. I miss the thrill of the hunt. I miss trying to game the system and get behind it all. It was a better game than anything Nintendo could offer (other than Splatoon 3, of course).

For more coverage on this year’s hottest console, be sure to check out our Nintendo Switch 2 review, as well as our Donkey Kong Bananza preview and Mario Kart World review. Or, if you’re looking to complete your gaming setup, take a look at our guides to the best Nintendo Switch 2 cameras and the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers.