My Nintendo Store Japan struggles to handle Switch 2 pre-order interest (UPDATE)

While pre-orders for Switch 2 are live at some places in the UK, will go live April 9th in other regions and have been delayed to an unspecified date in the U.S. due to Nintendo assessing Trump’s tariffs, the purchase action is already fired up in Japan…and it’s caused quite a fuss.

Today in Japan, Nintendo opened a Switch 2 lottery via the My Nintendo Store, and those who win will have a chance to pre-order a Switch 2 of their choice. Nintendo offers these pre-order lotteries in Japan in order to stay on top of demand and try to manage available stock. Nintendo knew demand would be high, so they put the My Nintendo Store through extended maintenance to prepare. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like their efforts worked out.

When Nintendo fans hopped on the website to entire the lottery, they were hit with errors, slow loading, and issues when trying to submit their information. Not surprisingly, all of this was caused by the massive influx of users all at the same time. The good news is that people will have another chance to get in on the lottery action.

The first Switch 2 pre-order lottery runs from today until April 16th, with winners being notified on April 24th. Nintendo will offer another opportunity later, but details on that haven’t been shared yet. Along with that, retailers in Japan are opening their own Switch 2 pre-orders on April 24th as well.

UPDATE: 5 days later and Nintendo is still struggling with service issues due to excited Nintendo fans hoping to get in on the Switch 2 pre-order lottery. Nintendo has put out a statement about the disruptions, noting that they are working to restore the site and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.