IT Home reported on June 9 that according to Nikkei News on the 6th, Nintendo's new generation gaming console, Nintendo Switch 2, was released on the 5th, and it triggered a resale trend on the second-hand trading platform on the same day. Although the resale price was once priced at around 100,000 yen (IT Home Note: the current exchange rate is about 4,970 yuan), the actual transaction price on Mercari is mostly between 70,000 and 80,000 yen (the current exchange rate is about 3,479 to 3,976 yuan), and there was a clear "price plunge".
Even so, the overall price on second-hand platforms is still higher than the official pricing, which has triggered many consumers to require the circulation platform to strengthen supervision.
The transaction price reached 90,000 yen, which is the recommended retail price of 40,000 9980 Nearly twice the yen; the lowest price is around 53,000 yen. Although some items are sold for around 100,000 yen, most of them end up selling between 70,000 and 80,000 yen, some also include free games or multilingual versions.
As Mercari bans the release of empty products that are "out of stock", the resale of the Switch 2 before it is released is mainly concentrated on Amazon and Rakuten Markets. As soon as the release date arrives, Mercari is lifted and a large number of spot-on listings are on the shelves, which also has an impact on high-priced resale products on Amazon and Rakuten markets.
As of the day before the release, only about 50 pieces were on the shelves on Amazon and Rakuten markets, and the price was generally set at around 100,000 yen. However, by the evening of the 5th, the prices of most commodities had dropped to 70,000 to 80,000 yen. It is supposedly a responsive adjustment made by the seller after observing a large number of low-priced products from Mercari.
High price reselling has always given people the impression of being a "premium several times", but why did the price plunge in Mercari this time? Hideki Yasuda, senior analyst at Toyo Securities, said that this is the result of Nintendo and other manufacturers strengthening prevention and exclusion of profit-making scalpers.
Nintendo has set strict thresholds for the lottery sales of Switch 2, such as "the current host has accumulated more than 50 hours of play time" and "subscribed to paid services more than one year". Large home appliance stores were also sold only through lots on the 5th and did not conduct on-site sales. These measures are intended to turn away buyers who aim to resell at high prices.
Yasada pointed out that most of the people who appeared in the market this time were "ordinary users who are not usually engaged in resale." Due to the fierce competition in lottery draws, many people have applied for quotas for Nintendo and multiple e-commerce platforms at the same time, and some users have won multiple tickets. "They may think that reselling at high prices is against their conscience, but selling at a slight price increase is OK." In fact, there are indeed users on Mercari saying "I won two units so I reselled", and the price is also close to the pricing.
Reselling game consoles is not illegal in itself, and "buy low and sell high" is also a common trend in commercial activities. Defining what is "high-priced resale" itself lacks unified standards. If the supervision is too strict, it may even hinder the entire second-hand trading ecosystem.
