A recent survey conducted in Japan about those planning to buy the Nintendo Switch 2 at launch reveals that only 3% of the people surveyed prefer the version without regional lock. This version would allow users to play games from outside Japan, while the region-locked model restricts them to games sold in Japan only.
The main reason for this preference is simple: the region-locked version is much cheaper. It costs 49,980 yen (about 335 usd), compared to the standard version priced at 69,980 yen (about 465 usd). This means a nearly 30% saving, which seems to make up for the limitations of the model, which, in any case, only affect a small group of users.
Survey Results
The survey was conducted by the Japanese content creator R_GameTV (thanks VGC), who gathered responses from around 60,000 players who had registered to preorder the Nintendo Switch 2 in Japan.
Of those surveyed, 69.7% said they had requested the region-locked Switch 2 bundled with Mario Kart World, while another 27.5% requested the base version. Only 2.9% of respondents asked for the more expensive region-free and multilingual version available exclusively from the My Nintendo Store.
Exclusive for Japan
It is important to note that the region-locked version at the reduced price is exclusive to the Japanese market and will not be sold elsewhere in the world. This has raised some concerns among users in America and Europe, who are curious about why this version is not available in their regions.
