Nintendo halts global Switch 2 sales and introduces 50 hour account playtime requirements to prevent scalper bots
Nintendo has temporarily halted sales of the global multi lingual version of the Nintendo Switch 2 following the detection of widespread automated bulk purchasing along with suspected scalper behavior. As stated by Nintendo in a social media announcement, any future distribution of this hardware configuration will utilize stringent user authentication to ensure that the hardware goes to end users and not to resellers.
Users can receive approval for a purchase when they have reached a certain amount of playtime associated with their existing Nintendo Account profile. The Nintendo Account making the purchase will have to have accumulated 50 or more hours of play on an original Nintendo Switch console before Sunday, May 31, 11:59PM. Playtime recorded on demo or F2P titles will not contribute to this milestone, and all playtime will be verified through account telemetry. In addition to the playtime threshold, the user may only purchase 1 unit per verified Nintendo Account.
The buying criteria are exclusively applicable to the global, multi lingual version of the Switch 2. Nintendo has confirmed that the criteria for purchasing the domestic Japanese language version will remain unaffected.
This represents the first time hardware producers have implemented a method of tracking how much a person uses a certain console to then regulate distribution to a certain number of people. This method, rather than being prone to bot attacks like retail stores were during this recent distribution, instead requires people to have a certain amount of time played to purchase the Switch 2, meaning that only established consumers can acquire a console instead of anyone who is able to bot a website.
