Nintendo’s robust lottery applications indicate pent-up Switch 2 demand

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By Sam Nussey

TOKYO (Reuters) -Nintendo said on Wednesday it has received 2.2 million applications in the lottery for its Switch 2 gaming device in Japan but cannot fulfil all the demand, indicating significant consumer enthusiasm for the more powerful gaming device.

There were far more applications on the My Nintendo Store than expected and the amount that can be delivered on June 5 has been greatly exceeded, Nintendo said in a social media post.

Shares jumped 5% in Tokyo on Thursday.

“The number is way beyond expectations,” said Serkan Toto, founder of the Kantan Games consultancy.

“It not only indicates Switch 2 will be sold out at launch but also the device is likely going to be hard to get for months after.”

The launch of the successor to Nintendo’s popular Switch gaming device will test the company’s ability to manage its supply chain.

Nintendo is preparing to sell the device amid a trade war between China and the U.S. and had paused the start of pre-orders in the United States before announcing it would maintain pricing at $449.99.

“Nintendo is ramping up production but initial supply will lag far behind demand,” Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal said in a client note.

The Switch 2’s predecessor sold 2.7 million units globally in its launch month in 2017 and has gone on to sell more than 150 million units.

It is “shaping up to be another record-breaking hardware cycle. Perhaps an unprecedented super-cycle,” Goyal wrote.

Nintendo made roughly a fifth of its sales in the year ended March 2024 in Japan, where the company enjoys a family-friendly reputation and began as a maker of playing cards.

The new device, which offers a bigger screen and better graphics, retails for 49,980 yen ($349.19) for a Japanese language system or 69,980 yen for a multi-language version.

($1 = 142.8700 yen)

(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Jacqueline Wong)