Back in the 1990s and 2000s, stores often opened at midnight for new tech releases – some of the most famous include Microsoft’s Windows 95 and the initial iPhone in 2007.
But the excitement has somewhat died down as we’ve moved further into the e-commerce age and further away from being dependent on stores. However, major console releases remain rare and there’s still excitement around new launches. But we haven’t had a physical console buzz for quite a while. After all, the Xbox Series X and S as well as the PlayStation 5 debuted in late 2020 after six months of the pandemic. So in-person events were not exactly the order of the day.
All of that pent-up enthusiasm has definitely come out for the Switch 2 launch and here we bring you some images, tweets and videos from the in-store launch events across the globe.
In Japan, the initial consoles were all pre-ordered, so there were no in-store sales on launch day. You can see what the displays look like in store though.
Here are a couple of scenes from the Nintendo Store in San Francisco:
And at the Nintendo store in New York:
In the US, Best Buy stores had late-night store openings. The retailer said beforehand: “In addition to fulfilling pre-orders, most stores will have limited inventory of systems, games and accessories for in-store purchase. Customers will also have the chance to receive a Nintendo commemorative coin.” Here’s a couple of images from Best Buy midnight openings at undisclosed locations (since Twitter/X no longer gives the location info on tweets).
As you can see here, there was a lot of people deciding to rock up and see if they could get a console on the night as the line here “wraps around the building”.
However, this level of on-the-day demand wasn’t reflected everywhere:
One poster also said they chanced upon one of the 21 consoles available on the day at one Walmart store after leaving the gym.
GameStop was similar with pickups starting at 12am EST or 9pm PST last night on 4 June and extra stock available.
It wasn’t all great news though, with one Redditor claiming that a GameStop store’s stapler ruined the Switch 2’s display.
The Nintendo Store in Tel-Aviv, Israel, also looked very busy too.
And here are some scenes from Saudi Arabia, too.
Pre-orders ready for collection in Sweden:
In the UK, Currys also did an old-school midnight opening but it was only in London’s Oxford Street and only for people who had pre-ordered the console. It was reported that Currys had 30,000 pre-orders, its “biggest gaming pre-order ever”.
However, Smyths Toys decided to open all its UK stores which had “limited stock of Switch 2 to purchase”.
In addition a handful of Smyth stores in Belfast, Glasgow, Hull, Romford and Stockport were also open from 11pm for the following event: “Take part in an exciting Mario Kart World gameplay demo. Plus the first 100 attendees will receive a FREE goodie bag packed with awesome Nintendo merch — while stocks last! No registration needed — play and celebrate the next level of Nintendo gaming with us!”
The pre-order merch on offer in various countries seemed to include coins as you can see from this tweet from the US:
And finally, if you’re too late to get one you might well see one of these:
