Cheapest place to buy a Nintendo Switch?

[supersun23]

Hi - could anyone help with this? Also, which one is best to buy. My 11 year old ds wants one but I don't really understand them. Does it come with games or do you have to buy them?

Hi. We have just bought one for our ds for Christmas.
We went for the proper switch. You can get the switch lite which is slightly cheaper, but I don't think you can detach the controllers or play on the television with that one.
The games are sold individually, however you can get certain games sold with the consoles in bundles. Games can vary in price, argos have some games in a 2 for £20 deal at the moment.
We got a mario kart bundle from Very. They had a decent price, and it was 20% off for opening a credit account. You can pay it all off once the account is set up.

We bought one for DS last Christmas and it was by far the best present, well worth the money we spent. My tips are;

• Smyths toys have £12 off when you spend £100 (on their website)
• as PO said definitely go for the "full" (not lite) version so he can also connect it to the TV
• some people also buy extra storage, we didn't, but we haven't needed it as all his games are on SD cards (some of them are a code that you then download, so it takes up storage space on the device)
• if he's going to play games Fortnite online with his friends, definitely get a headset with Mike for your own sanity
• set it all up before the big day- DH and I are not at all tech savvy and it took us a couple of hours.
• you can set up parental controls to monitor screen time etc

Can't remember what else you asked but happy to help if I can.

I think there are good Black Friday offers but personally when there were shortages of toys last year I couldn't hold my nerve and bought mid-November as I couldn't handle the stress of not being able to get one.

Great tips, thanks!

@Acunningruse advice is excellent. The registration servers are very busy on Christmas Day because everyone tries registering then. It takes a while and waiting is the last thing that a child wants to do.

Don't forget to update each game you buy too or your child is going to be pissed off when they can't play immediately. Put the disc in and the game should immediately tell you if updates are needed. The older the game, the more likely that there will be updates and some games have massive updates.

Bump

We bought ours second hand and it came in a bundle with a load of games and some accessories.
I think we paid £130 all in and it was worth every penny.

Thanks, where did you find it 2nd hand?

We opened a Very account to get the 20% off.

Switch 2 is due out in 2024/25. Depends if you want latest tech or not.

Watching with interest - I'm going to wait until Black Friday though.

You have to buy games separately unless you buy it as a bundle with games included.

I would personally wait til Black Friday if you want the best deal. They don’t usually discount the Switch itself, but on Black Friday they often offer bundles of the Switch plus maybe a couple of popular high end games for the same price as you normally pay for the Switch alone (these games are often £40-50 so not to be sniffed at!). It’s worth finding out what games/games your kid is most keen to play. I agree with others to get the full version if you can afford it, it’s more expensive but I think it’s much better value for money and likely to have more longevity for your child. I got one for my son age 8 or so and he’s 16 now and still uses it all the time.

I have looked every year since it came out for one person or another among my family and friends for Switch deals and every single year without fail the best deals by far have been on Black Friday.

The older games are cheaper (plus you can get some secondhand). Also if your child isn’t bothered about having a physical hard copy of a game, it’s often significantly cheaper to buy a digital download code through the Nintendo store (you can set up an account on the Switch itself and download it from there).

Marketplace.

The problem with digital games PP has mentioned is you can't sell them on once you don't play them anymore. You can sell switch games for not much less than you paid for them plus kids can swap games.

Has anyone seen any great deals?

techradar is a good website to watch at this time of year, good summary of the best deals around in the US and UK.
https://www.techradar.com/news/nintendo-switch-deals#section-nintendo-switch-bundles-in-the-uk

DS already has a switch, all the bits and loads of games so today I got DD the bundle at Smyths Toy Superstore for £280 = switch + Animal Crossing.

three years ago the Nintendo Store itself had the best deal for the bundle we wanted on Black Friday so it's worth checking around.

Highly recommend the shop c-ex. They sell tested second hand stuff with a guarantee. The customer service is brilliant and the staff know their stuff

@supersun23
Have you bought a Switch yet? If not, there are good deals at Very - and if you sign up for a credit account you get 20% discount on top. I got the Switch console with Mario Wonder for £207.20