After I waited in line for two hours this April, my preordered Nintendo Switch 2 finally became available on June 5, 2025, at GameStop in Englewood, Colorado.

The only problem: on that date, I was in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic in Europe.

My life as a digital nomad means I'm rarely in one place long enough to collect a product reserved months earlier. So a friend in Colorado picked up my Switch 2 on launch day and shipped it to my next domestic destination in Massachusetts. I arrived there on June 26 — and a week of travel later, I finally had time to unbox the console on July 4 in Brooklyn, New York, followed by a local data transfer from my Switch 1.

For the first time in 19 years, I didn't get my unboxing video posted on the day of the console's release — though the impact was, I suspect, minimal. I launched my YouTube channel with the unboxing of the Wii U in 2012; by the time the Switch launched five years later in 2017, my channel had already peaked. Still, I enjoyed performing day-one unboxings of Nintendo's latest video game console. While I couldn't continue that tradition this year, it was still fun to perform a month-one unboxing of the Switch 2.

For better or worse, the Switch 2 is an upgrade that requires continuous investment: beyond the console seen in this video, I also want to get a Pro 2 controller, a microSD Express card, a screen protector, a handheld grip and carrying case, and dragon skins. Watch my channel for more of those peripherals!