I've seen a lot of posts asking about buying a Switch 2 in Japan, so I wanted to make this post to tell everyone that you probably should not.

Currently retail stores in Japan are only selling the region locked Switch 2. This Switch 2 is much much cheaper than the one sold elsewhere in the world, but there are some significant drawbacks to it.

There is a region free model that's more expensive but currently, no retail stores are carrying it and it is only available from Nintendo directly.

Why should you not buy it?

The system is locked to Japanese language.

The Japanese Switch 2 is locked to Japanese. You cannot change the language from Japanese to another language.

This also means that most games will only be playable in Japanese, because for most games you cannot change the language in-game, you need to change the language in the system settings, which you cannot do on this version.

The system is locked to Japanese accounts.

You cannot sign into the Switch 2 with an account set to any region other than Japan.

If you set your account region to Japan you'll run into another issue. Nintendo has discontinued use of all foreign credit cards and payment processors on the Japanese eShop. You'll only be able to buy digital games by buying Japanese eShop gift cards at a markup from resellers.

So unless you understand Japanese, live in Japan or are a masochist who doesn't mind dealing with these issues, you should not buy a Switch 2 while in Japan.