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Yes—Nintendo said Japan’s Switch 2 lottery applications were far above expectations in April 2025. But the often-cited 2.2 million figure was applications to enter a lottery, not paid pre-orders, and Nintendo said its 15 million-unit fiscal-year sales forecast was not limited by production capacity. U.S. retailer stockouts and later launch sales tell related but different parts of the story.
How many people preordered the Switch 2 in Japan?
Contemporaneous reporting put Japan’s My Nintendo Store lottery at 2.2 million applications during the two weeks after it opened on April 4, 2025. That is an application count—not a count of confirmed purchases, a global pre-order total, or a measure of all demand at Japanese retailers. Nintendo’s May 2025 financial-results briefing confirmed the lottery period and described the response as far above expectations.
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Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said: “Far more applications were received than anticipated, so we announced in advance that a considerable portion of applicants would not be selected in the announcement on April 24.” Because the mechanism was a lottery, applicants who were not selected did not thereby become purchasers whose orders were later canceled; they had entered for a chance to buy through that channel.
Why did Nintendo run out of Switch 2 pre-orders?
There was no single worldwide pre-order queue. Japan’s My Nintendo Store used a lottery, while the U.S. pre-order opening on April 24, 2025 was a separate retail event. The Associated Press reported that U.S. listings at some retailers quickly showed as unavailable or out of stock. Nintendo also said delivery from its own store by launch day was not guaranteed. AP noted that total retailer pre-order capacity was not clear, so individual stockouts cannot establish how many customers were left without a console or how far demand exceeded supply.
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The distinction matters: a retailer’s listed allocation can sell through quickly without revealing the total number of units available across all sellers, while an application to a lottery is not a completed sale. Those events show that access was constrained at particular points, not a quantified global shortage.
Did Nintendo underestimate Switch 2 demand?
For Japan’s lottery response, Nintendo’s own account is clear: applications were far above its expectations. That is evidence that the response to that particular sales mechanism surprised the company. It does not establish that Nintendo underestimated total global demand by a specific number of consoles.
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Nintendo also addressed its forecast of 15 million Switch 2 hardware units for the fiscal year ending March 2026. Furukawa said the forecast was not determined by a production-capacity limit. That forecast and the unexpectedly high lottery applications are different measures: one is a fiscal-year hardware sales projection, while the other is interest registered for a Japanese lottery. Nintendo did not say the 15 million forecast represented the maximum it could manufacture.
What later sales figures show—and what they do not
Nintendo launched Switch 2 globally on June 5, 2025. It reported more than 3.5 million units sold to consumers during the first four days, calling that a record first-four-day launch for one of its dedicated video game platforms. In its August 2025 financial results, Nintendo also reported more than 6 million consumer units in the first seven weeks and said it was strengthening production in response to demand that had surpassed expectations.
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Nintendo’s investor presentation for August 2025 said demand was exceeding supply in many countries. That is a dated statement about conditions at that time, not a report on inventory today. The sales figures also do not calculate a pre-order shortfall: Nintendo defines sell-through as sales to individual consumers, including purchases through retailers and its direct-sales sites. Sell-in, by contrast, means units Nintendo sold to business partners. Neither measure is interchangeable with lottery applications or retailer pre-order availability.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the numbers mean for buyers
- 2.2 million: Reported applications to Japan’s My Nintendo Store lottery over two weeks beginning April 4, 2025—not purchases or a worldwide pre-order count.
- 15 million: Nintendo’s hardware sales forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2026; Nintendo said production capacity did not determine it.
- More than 3.5 million: Consumer units sold in the first four days after the June 5, 2025 launch, according to Nintendo.
- More than 6 million: Consumer units sold in the first seven weeks after launch, according to Nintendo’s August 2025 reporting.
These figures answer different questions and should not be added together or treated as competing estimates. The lottery measured applications in Japan; the forecast covered a fiscal year; the launch figures measured sales to consumers over specified periods.
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