On April 4, 2025, My Nintendo Store launched the Nintendo Switch 2 lottery in Japan.

Winners of the lottery will be entitled to purchase a Nintendo Switch 2 system of their choice, and similar to the My Nintendo Store in other countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, conditions for entering the lottery are strict – users need to have at least 50 hours of playtime on their Nintendo Switch as of February 28, 2025, an active Nintendo Switch Online membership, and must be a Nintendo Switch Online member for at least 1 year at the time of entering the lottery.

To prepare for the lottery, My Nintendo Store went under maintenance on April 4 from 1 am to 12 pm Japan time, but due to various issues, the maintenance was extended to 5 pm. However, it reopened earlier than expected around 3 pm Japan time.

Despite the maintenance, access to the website is intermittent and Japanese users  are reporting issues with submitting their lottery application. This might have been caused by the high number of users trying to submit their lottery application at the same time.

My Nintendo Store also outlined a few additional details for the lottery. A user who has already secured a Nintendo Switch 2 in a lottery cannot get another Nintendo Switch 2 in a future lottery, and users can only choose one type of Nintendo Switch 2 (Japan-only model, Mario Kart World Japan-only model, or Multi-Language model) to purchase. In addition, users who purchase the Multi-Language model will have the opportunity to purchase the console with a digital code of Mario Kart World for 73,980 yen. This is equivalent to the Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle offered in other countries.

The first lottery will run from April 4 to April 16, 2025 Japan time, and users will be notified of the results from the afternoon of April 24, 2025. That is also the same day Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders will begin at all other retailers in Japan.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.