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Nintendo surges on Switch 2 demand and preorder mayhem

Nintendo is enjoying a more than 6% bump on Thursday after preorders for its Switch 2 consoles finally kicked off in the US after a weeks-long delay due to tariffs.

Giving the gaming giant a boost: demand appears to be huge. The $450 console (and a $500 bundle) are out of stock on the websites of retailers like Walmart and Target. A notice at the online checkout page of GameStop, which waited until 11 a.m. ET to open preorders for the console, states that it is currently sold out.

Online, dozens of customers are reporting long wait times, broken websites, and canceled orders.

Despite sending virtually all of its Vietnam-built console supply to the US in recent months ahead of tariffs, Nintendo may not have reached the stockpile levels it was seeking. The companys US website states that delivery by the announced June 5 launch date isn’t guaranteed, and orders will be fulfilled as product becomes available.

On Wednesday, Nintendo said it received 2.2 million preorders in Japan, far exceeding its expectations.

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Hollywood may have its best year at the box office since 2019, but streaming audiences are still obsessed with old content

Viewers are opting for catalog content over new shows and movies across (pretty much) every major streamer.

Tom Jones6/29/26
culture
Tom Jones

The BBC has become the world’s top news website... by collapsing a little less than its competition

Press Gazette just published its annual look at the biggest news sites in the world across all languages; for the most part, it doesn’t make for particularly pretty reading.

The journalism industry publication’s latest update, which is based on estimates provided by Similarweb for May, found that 37 of the world’s 50 most visited news sites saw their reach shrink. Press Gazette highlighted that American outlets have been hit particularly hard by declining Google traffic compared to European counterparts, owing to the platform’s AI features rolling out earlier in the US.

Even the BBC, having climbed the rankings from last year to top the 2026 chart — reportedly in part thanks to Similarweb’s decision to combine the “.co.uk” and “.com” versions of the URL, given that the sites redirect to each other depending on the user’s location — showed a 1.9% decline from last year.

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