Despite the sky-high price of the new Switch 2, there has been unprecedented demand for the new console in Japan, Nintendo’s home country. Nintendo boss Shuntaro Furukawa announced that 2.2 million people had applied to buy the new console via the My Nintendo Store as part of a lottery process, which far exceeds the number of Nintendo Switch 2’s that could be delivered at launch.

As a result, Nintendo is offering a cheaper version of the Nintendo Switch 2 for the Japanese market to help the console maker’s domestic fans have a piece of the pie without paying an insanely high price for it because of their weaker currency. Of course, there’s a catch: that cheaper Switch 2 will be region-locked to Japan only, and will only be able to play Japanese games and use Japanese Nintendo accounts.

This bit of news will be important once the first batches of the Switch 2 arrive in stores, because gray market importers would love to sell you a shiny new console for an exorbitant price that won’t work where you live. But even that’s going to prove difficult, as even Nintendo admits that a “significant number of customers” won’t be able to get a Swift 2 at launch. Anyone who has applied to buy the console so far will be automatically entered into a second lottery, but this too will result in an undisclosed number of applications being unsuccessful.

Anyone who has applied to buy the console so far will be automatically entered into a second lottery, but this too will result in an undisclosed number of applications being unsuccessful.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is slated to officially arrive in SEA, including the Philippines, but Mario enjoyers will have to wait 1-3 months longer for the new handheld console to arrive because of the insane demand.