This appears to be a phenomenon limited to a single retailer, so no need to panic.
As the gaming world settles into the stretch run before Friday’s Nintendo Switch release, nothing can unsettle anxious fans like horror stories of not getting the console they expect on launch day.
Yet that’s exactly what’s going on across the pond (people still say that, right?). Some customers of GAME, the U.K. equivalent to GameStop, are apparently being informed that their Switch pre-orders are being canceled.
Pocket Gamer, which has its pulse on the British gaming scene like no one else, has a roundup of Twitter reactions to this unfortunate news, and as you might guess, it’s not pretty. That site also speculates that it’s possible that GAME simply took more pre-orders than it could fulfill and may not have realized its error until now.
Yet considering Nintendo’s long history of … let’s call them supply challenges, people get understandably antsy whenever something like this pops up. The nightmare scenario of anticipating a new product you’ve already paid for and then getting your money back but no console is real for some people, so why not here?
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Fortunately, there’s no sign that any other countries or retailers have been affected, so everyone else should be able to breathe easy. You’ll more than likely be playing the Switch, undoubtedly logging tons of hours on the sweet looking Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, before the week is out.
And if you’re not, at least you know to look to your British gaming friends for sympathy.