As pre-orders for the Switch 2 go live in the US, fans wrestle with errors, order cancelations, and general mayhem: "F*****g hell"

Pre-orders for the Switch 2 have now begun in the United States, and although it feels like everyone on the internet has been begging Nintendo to "drop the price," there has still been enough demand to throw everything into utter chaos as fans scramble to buy the console.

Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders in the US were previously delayed as a result of the recently announced tariffs, and while we've been keeping an eye on stock levels in our pre-order live blog, not everyone has been having a great time securing their consoles. There've been plenty of tweets from fans both struggling to buy the device in the first place, and even having their orders canceled after they thought the battle was won.

Target was one retailer that many customers seemed to be having issues with, including Summer Game Fest host Geoff Keighley, who describes the store as "brutal for Switch 2 pre-orders," adding: "System was in my cart, then it wasn't, then it was, wouldn't let me pay, etc."

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He's definitely not the only one. "I kept refreshing the page on Target to get the Switch 2, was on the checkout page for 20 minutes refreshing it over and over, hoping it would work. And after it claimed to finally work, I got an email saying it got canceled immediately. Fucking hell," another Twitter user writes.

"Switch 2 sat in my cart on Target for nearly 30 minutes, wouldn't let me just finalize my payment. Kept clicking, eventually my cart just went blank and then I got notified it was sold out," says another.

Issues like this haven't been exclusive to Target, however, as some fans have also reported that their orders from Walmart were canceled after placing them, while others seemingly struggled to get that far in the first place.

"Lookin' at the Switch 2 pre-order page on Walmart right now. Keep getting 'Sorry! We are having a technical issue. We're working on fixing it. Please try again later.' Every time I hit the pre-order button. Add the thing to the cart bro!" another exasperated customer tweets.

To make matters worse, Kotaku reports that Walmart had everyone in a queue that didn't even tell you how far through the line you were, which isn't exactly reassuring when it's also telling you how the console is "likely to sell out."

If you missed out on a pre-order from this first wave of stock from Walmart, Target, or elsewhere, fear not, as there'll still be more opportunities to come. GameStop's pre-orders will be going up at 8am PT / 11am ET today, April 24, so be sure to set an alarm for that if you're attempting to grab a console.

Keeping up with all the latest Nintendo Switch 2 news? Be sure to check out our roundup of upcoming Switch 2 games, too.