On June 5th, I awoke full of hope. Birds were singing. The air was filled with that intangible excitement—like the morning of a console launch. I stretched, made myself a cup of tea, and opened the My Nintendo Store.
Then I saw it.
「誠に残念ながら落選となりました」
(Makoto ni zannen nagara rakusen to narimashita)
– “We regret to inform you that you were not selected.”
Just like that, I was out. Another 抽選販売 (chūsen hanbai, lottery sale) gone. Another chance to join the next generation of Nintendo gamers… vanished like a Phoenix Down used on an undead.
At least I wasn’t alone. Over 2.2 million people in Japan had entered the first round of the Nintendo Switch 2 lottery. That’s more than the population of Osaka City, all hoping to be among the chosen few. Most weren’t.
So we did what any self-respecting digital society does when it faces shared trauma: we memed. The hashtag #Switch2難民の6月 (Switch2 nanmin no rokugatsu, “June of the Switch 2 Refugees”) began to trend, filled with photos of empty hands, haunted stares, and extremely polite rage. It was beautiful.
A Cultural Event in Denial Clothing
Japan does something extraordinary with scarcity: it ritualizes it. The 抽選販売 (chūsen hanbai) isn’t just a sales strategy; it’s a modern-day omikuji (fortune-drawing). It turns capitalism into a form of spiritual purification: you apply, you hope, and then you receive divine judgment from the algorithm. In this case, the gods were especially cruel.
Even Nintendo’s CEO, 古川俊太郎 (Furukawa Shuntarō), came out and basically said, “Yeah, you’re probably not getting one.” His statement—calm, measured, and perfectly phrased—was like being told by your boss that your dog died, but hey, you still have work to finish.
When the purchase window opened, it immediately melted under the pressure. The My Nintendo Store transformed into a Buddhist concept: 無 (mu, “nothingness”).
“Thanks for your overwhelming love. We had 2.2 million pre-orders. We expected… less. Like, a lot less. If you don’t win the lottery tomorrow, please don’t rage-quit society.”
But Wait—There’s More. Or Less.
You’d think June 5 would just be a day of despair, but the Japanese gaming media had other ideas. One of my favorite pieces came from 4Gamer, gently titled:
「Nintendo Switch 2」の“ない”6月5日を迎えたときのために――。
(“For that June 5 when you don’t have a Switch 2—let’s think of ways to survive.”)
The article offered coping strategies: play backlog games, go outside, talk to friends. But let’s be honest—none of us were going to do that. Not while the internet was being flooded with Mario Kart World unboxings and Donkey Kong Bananza reactions. One writer joked they were considering getting together with other 落選者 (rakusensha, “losers”) just to scream into the Tokyo Bay.
But still, there was warmth in it. These weren’t empty platitudes. This was collective catharsis, Japanese-style. One tweet read:
「落選した仲間とワイワイやるのも悪くないじゃん」
(Rakusensha to waiwai yaru no mo warukunai jan)
“It’s not so bad, hanging out with fellow lottery losers.”
“Life’s a foggy JR line but hey, the moon might come out eventually.”
The Plot Twist: China Hacks the Console. Literally.
Just as we were all wallowing in self-pity, the Chinese tech scene threw a molotov cocktail into the discourse. A channel called 極客湾 (Jí kè wān, “Geekerwan”) somehow managed to get their hands on a Switch 2 motherboard—weeks before launch. From a listing on 闲鱼 (Xiányú, China’s eBay, but spicier).
They stripped it down, reverse-engineered the chip, did microscopy on the transistors, and casually revealed: this thing is running an Ampere-based GPU, has 1536 CUDA cores, and performs better than the A18 Pro in docked mode. It benchmarks somewhere between a downclocked RTX 2050 and a ninja trained by FromSoftware.
It was, frankly, the most beautiful tech leak I’ve ever seen. The dock mode can run Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p with DLSS. I mean, come on.
This wasn’t just a leak. It was a declaration of war on NDA culture. And honestly, we were all grateful.
Why It Matters for Game Developers in East Asia (and Beyond)
This isn’t just a story about Japanese scarcity fetishism or Chinese ingenuity. The Switch 2 marks a pivotal hardware moment for developers.
For years, Japanese indies had to choose: do you target underpowered hardware and sacrifice ambition, or ignore the Switch entirely? Now, that gap is closing.
Meanwhile, Chinese devs are already building cross-platform titles meant to scale across RTX-level PCs and Snapdragon chipsets. The Switch 2’s specs place it in that same ecosystem. That means one thing: shared pipelines.
Build your game right, and you can launch on Steam, Android, and Switch 2 with minimal compromise. In an East Asian market increasingly defined by both overlap and national quirks, this is gold.
Even from a cultural perspective, the emotional buildup around the Switch 2’s launch has elevated it to symbolic status. It’s not just a console. It’s the object of pilgrimage, the jade idol we’re all chasing through digital temples.
So What Now?
Well, I wait for 抽選販売 round 2. Then round 3. Maybe round 7 if necessary.
Until then, I’ll spend my June like the rest of the Switch難民 (nanmin, “refugees”):
- Pretending I’m totally okay playing Rune Factory: Ryū no Kuni on my OG Switch
- Watching gameplay of DELTARUNE Chapter 4 with the emotional resilience of a wet sponge
- Plotting to befriend someone who got a Switch 2 just to “borrow” it for a week
- And translating all of this chaos into culturally relevant, developer-savvy localization content because… that’s my job
To developers:
If you’re not preparing your game for the Japanese and Chinese Switch 2 market, now’s your chance. The hype isn’t fake. The audience is massive. And the emotional investment? Priceless.
To gamers:
If you didn’t win the 抽選 (chūsen, “lottery”)—know this: your pain is shared. Your memes are valid. And one day, you too will join the ranks of the blessed.
Until then, there’s always ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN. And crying.
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