Yesterday, several Legend of Zelda fans got the unfortunate news that their Walmart pre-orders of the new Triforce-adorned Switch 2 consoles were being canceled a day before they were supposed to arrive (which is today, October 29). Now, the day is here, and the situation has somehow gotten worse, with stores reportedly telling workers to expect delays and missing stock in the days leading up to the Ocarina of Time remake’s launch next week.
A redditor posted an internal memo being sent to Walmart employees regarding in-store pick-up for the Zelda Switch 2 systems, which says that some stores may not get the device today “due to a supply chain delay.” Workers are instructed to provide “consistent communication” to customers who pre-ordered the Switch 2 while the impacted orders are still in transit. Workers who have tried to scan systems that have arrived at their locations are finding a point-of-sale block on the devices and are being told not to override the block which will remain in place until at least November 6, a full week after the device’s announced launch date, to ensure that pre-orders are fulfilled.
“We showed up at Walmart at 6 a.m., spoke to an electronics person, and was told that they were unable to scan the consoles they had in stock (three units),” the Reddit user writes. “They suggested waiting until 7, when their electronics section truly opened. At 7, the console would still not scan. The employee went into the back and came back with [the above internal memo]. Seems like this is happening at Walmart and other stores like Target, as well.”
As this is happening, people who pre-ordered from Walmart are still being hit with cancellations even on launch day, and now with holds like this on in-store consoles, it seems like finding one out in the wild isn’t going to be much easier. A Kotaku reader reached out and told us that Walmart customer service claimed some orders were being canceled as part of a nebulous “store issue,” but later received a call from the company’s online delivery department saying they were able to secure the Switch 2 they ordered for pick-up. Hopefully they’re not met with the same issue others trying to buy the system in stores are running into.