Nintendo finally pulled back the curtain on the Switch 2, and within roughly eleven minutes the entire internet devolved into the digital equivalent of a Black Friday stampede.
The console launches June 5 at $449.99, with a Mario Kart World bundle running $499.99.
Except getting one is already proving harder than getting a PS5 in 2020, and we all swore we'd never do this again.
Retailers opened preorders in staggered waves that felt less like a launch strategy and more like a psychological experiment.
Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and GameStop each dumped inventory at different times, which meant anyone with a job, a nap, or basic human needs was instantly punished.
Within minutes, sites buckled, carts emptied themselves, and Twitter filled with screenshots of error pages captioned with increasingly unhinged profanity.
The usual suspects are already crawling out of the woodwork. eBay listings popped up almost instantly at $700, $800, $1,000, because of course they did.
Nothing says "I love gaming" like buying a console you don't want purely to resell it to someone who actually does.
If you're the type who refreshes StockX for fun, congratulations, you're part of the problem.
This is genuinely a better machine than the original.
The 7.9-inch 1080p LCD screen is a real upgrade, the Joy-Cons attach magnetically instead of via that flimsy rail system everyone hated, and there's a second USB-C port on top for charging in handheld mode.
Nintendo also confirmed backward compatibility with most physical and digital Switch games, which is the single most important line in the entire announcement.
The pricing is where things get spicy. $449.99 for the base console is a solid $150 more than the original Switch launched at, and Nintendo is charging $79.99 for flagship games like Mario Kart World.
That's ten bucks more than the standard $70 that already felt like a slap in the face.
If you're doing the math on a bundle plus two games plus a Pro Controller, you're staring down $650 before tax, which is roughly the price of a decent laptop.
Then there's the GameCube controller situation, the paid Switch 2 Edition upgrade patches for existing games, and the general sense that Nintendo looked at Sony and Microsoft's nickel-and-diming and said "hold my beer." The company that used to sell you a complete experience in a box now wants a subscription, an accessory, and a blood sample.
If you've got a Switch library and you actually play it, sure, the backward compatibility alone makes it a reasonable upgrade eventually.
Wait for the launch window chaos to settle, though.
Nothing about fighting bots and scalpers at 3 a.m. is worth a marginal frame rate bump.
The honest take here is that Nintendo has a banger of a console wrapped in the worst possible buying experience.
The software lineup will probably be incredible by holiday 2025.
Final Thoughts
But if you're paying $800 to a guy named Chad on eBay because you couldn't wait three months for restocks, that's not a Nintendo problem.