Legendary creator ofSuper Smash Bros.andKirbyMasahiro Sakurai has secured aNintendo Switch 2, and he did it just like the rest of us, hoping to be lucky enough to snag a pre-order.Switch 2 pre-orders have been chaos, with a litany of website errors on top of the high demand. Despite Sakurai’s long history of working with Nintendo, he too had to put his Switch 2 hopes in the hands of a lottery, and luckily managed to secure a spot.
Masahiro Sakuraitweeted (viaGamesRadar) about being selected for the My Nintendo Store lottery in Japan, which notified its selected winners on April 24 that their Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order had been secured. Sakurai is currently developingKirby Air Ridersfor the upcoming console, and has a long history with Nintendo, being the creator of theKirbyandSuper Smash Bros. franchises. Sakurai clearly has access to a Nintendo Switch 2 dev kit for his work onAir Riders, butthe console itself is in apparently such high demand that he wasn’t gifted one from Nintendo.
Sakurai & Other Prominent Developers Are Also Scrambling For A Switch 2
Everyone In The Industry Is Excited Too
As noted byGamesRadar,plenty of prominent figures around the gaming industry, not just Sakurai, are trying to get their hands on a Switch 2. Everyone from LocalThunk, creator of indie darling andGOTY contenderBalatro, to The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley is trying to secure a Switch 2 pre-order. Sakurai had more luck than both of them – LocalThunk and Keighley both wrote about how they were unable to get a pre-order confirmed.
Sakurai’s success seems to have come from the My Nintendo Store lottery, which had previously been thrown into question byNintendo stating it couldn’t meet the demandfor sign-ups in Japan. A staggering 2.2 million people applied for the Switch 2 lottery in Japan alone, andSakurai just happened to be lucky enough to get chosen from that enormous pool of hopeful customers. The same sort of lottery is happening via the My Nintendo Store in the U.S. on May 8, though those pre-ordersaren’t guaranteed to arrive by launch day.
Nintendo Switch 2 Is Set To Have The Biggest Console Launch Ever, Despite Pre-Order Chaos
The Switch’s Form Factor Is A Massive Hit
While the technical realities of actually pre-ordering a Switch 2 have caused some issues, Nintendo’s latest console is already an incredible success. The fervor over the Switch 2 is resulting in retailers selling out of stock almost immediately.Bloombergpredicts thatthe Switch 2 has a chance to be the biggest hardware launch of all time, selling somewhere between six and eight million units. This is impressive but not necessarily a revelation; the original Switch is incredibly popular – the second best-selling home console of all time behind the PlayStation 2 – and the Switch 2 is a straight upgrade, with backward compatibility to boot.
The Switch’s versatility as a home console that can also be used on the go has proven to be a runaway success for Nintendo, leading to a resurgence of handheld gaming devices, including the Steam Deck (which can similarly be hooked up to a monitor) and even anunrevealed Xbox handheld. The Switch 2 has faced some controversy over its price, which is $150 more than the original Switch, and that of its games, but that hasn’t slowed down the excitement. Even industry icons like Masahiro Sakurai are lining up for their chance to get aNintendo Switch 2on release.
Sources:Masahiro Sakurai/Twitter(viaGamesRadar),LocalThunk/Bluesky,Bloomberg
Nintendo Switch 2
The Nintendo Switch 2 is the successor to Nintendo Switch, scheduled for release in 2025. Confirmed as backwards compatible, it will play both physical and digital Nintendo Switch games. A full reveal is pencilled in for August 15, 2025.
