Grab your credit card and a Xanax, because Nintendo just opened the floodgates.
Preorders for the Switch 2 went live this week, and within roughly eleven seconds every retailer's website looked like a Black Friday stampede at a mall that only has one working escalator.
Best Buy, Walmart, and GameStop all buckled under the load, serving up the classic "something went wrong" screen to millions of hopeful adults who just wanted to give a corporation $450.
Nintendo, for its part, is doing that thing where it acts shocked that people want to buy its product.
The company rolled out a lottery system for its own store, which is a fun way to remind everyone that you can't just hand them money.
It's giving exclusive nightclub, except the bouncer is a server error and the dress code is a Nintendo Account with verified email.
The specs, if you care, are exactly what the leaks promised for the last two years.
A bigger screen, magnetic Joy-Cons that will not drift (allegedly), and enough horsepower to finally run games that don't look like they were rendered on a potato.
Mario Kart 9 is the launch title, because of course it is.
Nintendo has been rereleasing Mario Kart since the Bush administration and we keep buying it, so honestly, this is on us.
What's genuinely wild is the pricing discourse.
A $450 console plus $80 games has Reddit doing advanced mental gymnastics to justify the purchase. "It's actually a great deal if you factor in the 400 hours you'll play," writes one user, who is currently eating instant ramen for the next six months.
Another is upgrading from a launch Switch with a cracked screen and a Joy-Con held together by electrical tape, which, fair.
Retailers are already promising restocks, which is corporate for "we have no idea when we'll have more." Scalpers have reportedly listed units at triple the price, because the only thing more reliable than Nintendo's quality is some guy named Chad with a bot farm.
If you see a listing for $1,200, that's not a console, that's a cry for help.
Launch units tend to have a weird bug or two, the library is thin, and there will absolutely be a bundle by the holidays.
But if you're the type who needs to be first, go ahead.
You've earned the right to complain about drift in six months.
The real winner here isn't Nintendo or the scalpers.
Final Thoughts
It's the people who bought a Switch in 2017, played Breath of the Wild, and never touched it again.