Nintendo Switch 2 has been out and in the hands of all the early adopters for nearly two months now. If you haven’t pulled the trigger yet on Nintendo’s new hybrid console, you might be wondering if you should pick one up now that the stock shortage appears to be over, or if you should wait for Black Friday. As someone who has written about sales and deals for the past eight years or so, I have some thoughts!
Reasons to Buy Now
Nintendo Switch 2 – Mario Kart World Bundle
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Nintendo Switch 2
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The Price May Go Up
Thanks to the wild tariff uncertainty happening in the US right now, it’s entirely possible that the price of the Switch 2 actually increases by Black Friday 2025. That would be bad, because a $450 starting price is already higher than many Switch fans expected. But an increase on top of that is not out of the question. If it goes up, it would be better to have already bought your Switch 2 at its launch price.
Donkey Kong Bananza Is Awesome, and More Games Are Coming
Mario Kart World is a great game, especially for anyone who has friends over regularly, because it’s a top-tier party game. But for me the Switch 2’s killer app is Donkey Kong Bananza. Made by the Super Mario Odyssey team, this game oozes fun and originality. It’s similar to Odyssey in a lot of ways (wide open worlds, tons of collectibles, etc.), but the gameplay is all based around digging and manipulating rock chunks. It’s phenomenal. Read our 10/10 review for details.
Beyond DKB, a bunch more Switch 2 games are expected out this year. We’ll get exclusives like Metroid Prime 4, Pokemon Legends Z-A, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, and Kirby Air Riders coming in 2025. Then there are ports and multi-platform games heading to Switch 2 this year, like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, Star Wars Outlaws, Elden Ring, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Borderlands 4. There’s even a new Professor Layton coming. The library will grow fast.
Playing AAA Titles on the Go Rules
If you don’t have a Steam Deck or one of the dozens of other handheld gaming PCs, you might not know how cool it is to be able to play Cyberpunk 2077, for instance, wherever you go. It’s awesome. It’s super convenient to be able to play massive games anywhere you happen to be as long as you have your Switch 2 on you. And more big games are coming.
Reasons to Wait
It’s Expensive
Look, $450 is a lot. It’s $150 more than the original Switch, which is hard to swallow even when you consider the sizable power increase. But on top of that up-front cost, you’ll also need to buy games and probably some Switch 2 accessories as well — all of which are also more expensive than their counterparts in the last generation. If you can put off spending that much cash until later, when there will be more games to choose from, that’s hard to resist.
There May Be a Black Friday Deal
I wouldn’t plan on seeing a discount on the Switch 2 during Black Friday. What Nintendo has done in the past with the original Switch is include a pack-in game at no additional cost (it was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe every single year). Since the Mario Kart World bundle currently costs $50 more than the Switch 2 console without a bundled game, that would save you some cash – assuming the base price of the console doesn’t get pushed up due to tariffs prior to Black Friday, that is.
There Aren’t Many Exclusive Games Yet
As fun as Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza are, that’s about it for exciting exclusives at the moment. Sure, you can play Cyberpunk 2077 and Split Fiction on Switch 2, but you can also play them on other platforms. If you can hold off on playing the currently available exclusives, it may make sense to wait until more exclusives are available, especially if you don’t have a spare $500 burning a hole in your pocket.
Nintendo Will Likely Release a New Model at Some Point
Nintendo does it every console generation without fail: it releases a new model of the console that’s better in every way than the original hardware. The caveat here is that the new model could take a long time to arrive. The Switch OLED was released in 2021, over four years after the original Switch came out. So waiting that long for a potential Switch 2 upgrade probably isn’t the wisest choice.
In Conclusion
In the end, of course, you have to make the decision that’s right for you. I weighed all of the above issues myself when Nintendo announced the Switch 2. In the end, I decided to preorder one. I had some extra justification because writing about video games is my job, but even so, it was hard to part with $500 for the bundle.
However, I don’t regret the decision at all. I have lots of fun playing Mario Kart World with my kids, and I’m having an absolute blast with Donkey Kong Bananza now. Plus, I have a backlog of original Switch games I never got around to playing, and they all look phenomenal on the vibrant 8-inch Switch 2 screen.
If you choose to hold off on purchasing one for a possible Black Friday bundle discount, I won’t blame you at all. Spending $500+ is no small thing, and there’s no one right choice for everybody. But making the purchase now means you’ll have more time to play the awesome games that are already available, and we know plenty more are coming in the future.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.
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