Nintendo

What I learned

Nintendo "underestimated" how well its Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition Switch 2 would sell

An exec admitted the miss and asked fans to "Please be patient" on restocks, per a r/NintendoSwitch thread that pulled 6,363 upvotes and 526 comments. The hype is real: Ocarina of Time arrives November 5th per the Nintendo of America trailer, and the official download size just dropped from an estimated 27 GB to 24.54 GB per a separate r/NintendoSwitch post (2,601 upvotes). Nintendo Everything quoted Nintendo calling Ocarina "a global phenomenon," and the exec, Zyll, confirmed restocks are coming for the special-edition console itself, telling reporters "Yes. I can't tell you date" when pressed on timing. A separate interview covered by FRVR has him saying Nintendo is "working on replenishments of the special hardware and software." Nintendo Wire adds that restocks will roll out globally but will "take some time" since the company misjudged initial demand for the special edition. Nintendo Life had flagged the problem as early as September, noting the $519.99 bundle sold out almost immediately on the US Nintendo Store alongside the $69.99 physical Ocarina of Time game. By October, Nintendo Life confirmed the Switch 2 bundle, Pro Controller, and Ocarina of Time pin bundle were still showing out of stock on the Nintendo Store, with fans told to watch the Nintendo Store app for updates. On the release calendar side, Nintendo Wire reports the Zelda 40th Anniversary console, Pro Controller, and carrying case are now scheduled to launch October 30, 2026, just days before the Ocarina of Time remake itself, and pre-orders for the $69.99 remake are currently discounted to $59.99 at retailers. Retail is already chasing the demand: a risadeals Threads post spotted the Legend of Zelda Edition Switch 2 in stock at Walmart for $519, a sign the restock pressure is real on shelves, not just online.

Nintendo says it has no plans to ditch physical games

"There's no plans to ditch physical. We know how much the fans like it as well," per the top r/NintendoSwitch thread of the window at 9,295 upvotes and 840 comments. The physical-media debate spilled onto Instagram, where kitandkrysta broke down Nintendo's interview about physical support on the Nintendo Switch 2 to 8,077 views and 1,079 likes, and the secondhand market keeps proving the point too, with sellers on Threads still moving boxed Nintendo Switch OLED units bundled with physical game cards.

Modern Warfare 4 landed on Switch 2 October 23

Call of Duty returns to a Nintendo platform with a full campaign, 12 all-new 6v6 maps, and the Hajin DMZ mode, per NintendoAmerica (1,885 likes, 257,447 views). mjgvibes posted docked multiplayer gameplay running with Nvidia DLSS to 507 likes, and the r/NintendoSwitch announcement hit 384 upvotes. On TikTok, sliceofgaming97 argued the Switch 2 "can FINALLY be your MAIN console" to 97,508 views, name-checking Onimusha: Way of the Sword and upcoming FromSoftware titles alongside Modern Warfare 4 as proof the platform is closing the third-party gap.

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort dropped October 22

The sequel landed as "the most feature-packed Nintendo sports game yet" per a r/NintendoSwitch review thread (1,664 upvotes, 355 comments), and Nintendo tied the launch to in-store events at Nintendo NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO per the Nintendo official site. The French Nintendo accounts leaned in hard for Paris Games Week - NintendoActu ran a Switch 2 + Sports Resort giveaway that pulled 3,311 reposts, and @Nintendo itself kept amplifying the launch content across its main account through the window.

The Switch 2 jailbreak scene exploded out of nowhere

"The unhackable system is now being hacked left and right," per RGT 85, who's tracking the speed of people finding ways to jailbreak the console and what they can do with it. The nerves show up on TikTok too, where whistrey warned "Don't jail break your Nintendo switch 2" to 220,154 views and 15,148 likes. Separately, the open-source project nxnative is running Switch games natively on iPhone, not emulation, with Zelda TOTK at 60fps, BOTW, and Mario Kart 8 reported playable, per 0xIkki (327 likes). Elsewhere in the homebrew-adjacent corner of GitHub, the code198x docs project is building out a pattern library of reusable game capabilities and system-specific trade-offs, the kind of groundwork that keeps feeding retro and hardware hacking communities.

Nintendo won a $4.5M judgment against the r/SwitchPirates mod 'Archbox'

The ruling landed September 26 per TorrentFreak via Hacker News, continuing Nintendo's aggressive anti-piracy posture even as the hacking scene heats up. It's a telling bookend to a month where the community is openly swapping homebrew and modding tips.

Nintendo is hiring hard across hardware, localization, and Retro Studios

The careers board shows 64 open roles in the window, from a Sr Engineer, PCIe (NTD) at Nintendo Technology Development to a Lighting Artist contract at Retro Studios in Austin and a Concept Artist at Nintendo Software Technology Corporation in Redmond. Finance and localization are stacking up too, with a Sr Credit & AR Coordinator, a CONTRACT - Sr Accountant, and an Associate Localization Specialist - Japanese role all live in the window. Every listing repeats the same corporate boilerplate under "About Nintendo of America": Nintendo of America Inc. partners with Nintendo Co., Ltd. to bring franchises like Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and Animal Crossing across the Americas, and the Human Resources language notes Nintendo has sold more than 4.7 billion video games and 740 million hardware units since the Nintendo Entertainment System launched in 1983. One Technology Development opening even specified the Manager Mario level tier, a small but telling detail about how granular Nintendo's internal leveling structure gets.

The hardware numbers behind the hype are now public

Nintendo's own investor relations PDF via nintendo.co.jp shows Switch 2 hardware at 17.37 million units sold for the FY25/FY26 Q1-Q3 comparison period, against legacy Switch hardware trailing off at 3.25 million units, down 66.0% year over year. Switch 2 software quarterly unit sales climbed from 0.98 million to 1.36 million across the most recent quarters tracked, while original Switch software held at a much larger but declining 4.54 to 7.01 million range, underscoring just how fast the install base is shifting to the new hardware heading into the Zelda 40th and Ocarina of Time launch window. Separately, Nintendo Life has been tracking best-seller lineups across both platforms, with legacy titles like New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe still climbing toward 18.96 million lifetime units even as Switch 2-native software starts building its own charts.