Nojima Online, a Japanese electronics retailer, has announced that pre-orders for the Switch 2 on their website will start on April 24, and in preparation for that, they made an open call on X looking for their followers’ best ideas for strategies to combat scalping.
Ever since the grand reveal of the Switch 2 on April 2, Nintendo’s various countermeasures against scalping have been a hot topic both in the Western and Japanese online communities. The two notable ones for the Japanese region are that the Japanese-language only version is region-locked, meaning it would be difficult to sell it overseas, and that the pre-ordering conditions were made quite rigorous (like not being allowed to pre-order Switch 2 unless you have at least 50 hours of play time on Switch) to minimize the possibility of bulk-buying.
Consequentially, retailers such as Nojima have been looking to implement their own measures to fight resellers. In their X post, they explained that, while they admire the way My Nintendo Store is combating scalping, they sadly can’t implement the same measures (as they don’t have access to people’s accounts), which is why they’re looking for ideas from their followers.
Nojima encouraged X users to post their ideas of what the best, most foolproof anti-scalping measures could be under the hashtag #私の考える最強転売対策 (#My idea for the strongest countermeasure against scalping).
I’m sure the owner of the console wouldn’t mind it, but since it won’t be in a “brand-new” state anymore, that would impact the price of which it could be resold at; and resellers wouldn’t want to sell items that have their full name written on it for everyone to see.
・Customers have to sign a warranty under their name
・Make a quiz on Nintendo and only the people who answer correctly can buy the console. Only allow answers in Japanese.
・Make the Customers bring in and show their old Switch/other Nintendo console, but don’t allow the purchase if it’s obviously brand new.
Nojima Online has already announced that they will be allowing Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders on an invite-only basis and through “secret sales” (a first-come, first-served lottery-based sales method in which only a limited amount of people is chosen to participate). However, it looks like they are quite determined to make life even harder for scalpers through extra measures. Thankfully, gamers are eager to help them out, as they’re already getting quite creative in thinking up ways to filter out resellers from actual customers.
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