Earlier this week, someone was able to get their hands on the upcoming Nintendo Switch ahead of release. Initially, it was thought that this Switch unit was acquired through retail shipping errors but that no longer seems to be the case.

Nintendo has now spoken out about the Switch systems in the wild and gave the following statement to IGN:

Earlier this week, individuals claimed to prematurely purchase a small number of Nintendo Switch systems from an unspecified retailer. Nintendo has determined these units were stolen in an isolated incident by employees of a U.S. distributor, with one system being illegally resold. The individuals involved have been identified, terminated from their place of employment and are under investigation by local law enforcement authorities on criminal charges.

Nintendo Switch will launch worldwide on March 3, 2017, and we look forward to everyone being able to discover the wonders of the new system for themselves at that time.

These things always seem to happen around the release of new hardware. Most notably, it occurred in a situation similar to this before Sony’s announcement of the PS4 Slim last year.

While Nintendo has now solved their problem on hand, that didn’t prevent the person who purchased the lone system to post footage of its user-interface online. In addition, this same person did a full unboxing of the upcoming Nintendo console showing everything that comes in the retail packaging.

Posted: Feb 19, 2017 3:47 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://www.dualshockers.com/2017/02/19/nintendo-issues-statement-regarding-switch-systems-wild-says-one-unit-stolen-illegally-resold/