Launch day for the first special-edition Nintendo Switch 2 reportedly did not go to plan at every store. The Nintendo Switch 2 Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition, built to celebrate 40 years of The Legend of Zelda, was set to release today, October 29, but a reported supply chain delay appears to have kept it off some shelves.
The clearest evidence so far is a photographed Walmart notice shared on Reddit, which states that some stores may not receive the console in time for its planned release because of the delay. The notice says a point-of-sale block will remain in place through at least November 6, giving the chain time to fulfill preorders and restock as inventory arrives.
Under that plan, orders would be filled by preorder priority as stock comes in, and stores are told not to cancel customer preorders because of the delay. Customers who ask are to be told their order will be filled as soon as the product reaches their store.
The shopper behind the post describes arriving at 6 a.m. and being told the consoles in stock would not scan, even once the electronics department opened at 7 a.m. An employee then produced the printed notice, which is how the delay became public at all.
The same post carries an update from 9:30 a.m. ET saying some Walmart stores were suddenly able to sell the console in store from 8 a.m. local time. The poster's partner went back to their local store and was able to get one, with the poster cautioning that results may vary.
That makes the delay a moving target rather than a single new date. Some stores may be blocked through November 6 or longer, while others are reportedly already selling the console that was supposed to be unsellable this morning.
The timing matters because the console was meant to arrive just before Nintendo's remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Switch 2, which launches on November 5. Anyone who bought the anniversary console specifically for the remake would be cutting it close if their store's block runs to November 6 at the earliest.
Nintendo has not commented on the reported delay, and nothing about a wider rollout problem has been confirmed. The poster also mentioned hearing similar issues at Target, though that part of the story remains unverified.
For now, the safest read is the narrow one: at least some Walmart stores reportedly could not sell the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 on launch morning, and at least some of those stores reportedly could by mid-morning. Everyone still waiting on a preorder is in the gap between those two reports.
