For nearly two months, a small community of diehard Nintendo fans took root on the sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan to be among the first to receive the Nintendo Switch 2.
At the center of everything for much of those two months was Rinaldy Gomez, a 33-year-old New Yorker whose marathon wait was about more than just a new console.
Nintendo unveiled the Switch 2 in April and put it up for sale in June. It quickly become the fastest-selling console in Nintendo history. Some 3.5 million units were sold globally four days after its June 5 release. Gomez began camping outside the Nintendo store on April 9, a week after the Switch 2's debut during Nintendo Direct.
During the afternoon before it went on sale, Gomez told Laptop Mag outside the Nintendo Store at Rockefeller Center that he had mixed emotions. He had been stationed outside the store since the console was unveiled in April, taking breaks here and there while assisting Chickendog, a YouTuber documenting his wait for the Switch 2 release. A few others worked in shifts and protected each other’s spots in line while people took the occasional break.
But the 57-day vigil was nearly over.
“Yesterday, on the subway, I had tears of joy because, you know, I'm at the end of the road,” Gomez said, noting as he was talking that it was his birthday. “All of the fun is coming to an end.”
For Gomez, Nintendo has been a large part of his identity since he waited outside the same store in 2012 at age 20 to buy a Nintendo Wii U. “I can’t believe this is the first time in my life I’m losing a night’s worth of sleep [to buy] a game,” he remembers thinking on that night 2012.
In the intervening years, he says he had attended nearly all the Nintendo store's events. He says he spent so much of his life around Nintendo that it began to take its toll.
“I spent all my time just attending Nintendo events, and I had no character other than attending Nintendo events,” he admits, before noting he quit the Nintendo scene cold turkey for a year. As a result, he was miserable.
“I was miserable because I refrained from playing games for a while and realized I just lay at home all day doing nothing,” he says, adding that he has “learned to accept my interest for what it is.”
Life camping out for a video game is nothing if not communal. Gomez says that about 20-25 people eventually began camping out on the sidewalk with makeshift tents they called “weather pods,” which protected them from the elements.
"Some days we were struggling because it was as few as four people during the daytime or three people during the nighttime, sometimes two," Gomez admitted. "But by some miracle, we managed to maintain all of our assets and inventories... it was pretty well guarded."
"A lot of people from different walks of life, but we all share the same common goal."
He notes that nothing was stolen, and they even found some tranquility amid the urban noise. “Surprisingly,” he says, the tent life was “pretty relaxing.”
“Believe it or not, I had peace of mind in this concrete setting, which is very hard to do. And I managed to get some sleep.”
He says the other campers bonded over their shared interests despite their differences. People came from Connecticut, Vancouver, Canada, North Carolina, Maryland, and the UK.
“Some of us even have different political views, but regardless, we all share the common goal of getting the Switch 2,” Gomez says.
In the hours before the Switch 2 went on sale, 48th Street between 5th and 6th avenues was happening: Cab drivers craned their necks, asking anybody who would listen what was going on; tourists stopped and gawked more than usual; the driver of a Tesla Cybertruck stopped to take a photo in the middle of the street. Both sides of the street were lined with Nintendo fans dressed for the occasion. Gomez was dressed as Luigi; several Marios were looking at their phones. One stood unbothered near a drain pipe.
Even though the Switch 2 wouldn’t go on sale until midnight, there were large red tents for fans to step into to play the Switch 2.
The moment was so close. And before long, it would all be over.
"I had tears of joy because, you know, I'm at the end of the road."
A few days after the fury of the release, Gomez reflected on his final campout to Laptop Mag via email. He headed home after buying his Switch 2 and fell into a deep sleep. Before the Switch 2 went on sale, a few members of the group he was camping with granted him a longer-than-normal break because he began to develop black circles around his eyes from a lack of sleep.
He explains that it was time to "touch grass" when he woke up. He walked along the Hudson River by his apartment uptown. “It’s surreal to finally be able to not follow a specific schedule,” he recalled.
When asked if he could go back in time and spend his days and nights outside the Nintendo store, Gomez says he would gladly do it again.
He also admits this will probably be the last campout for a console as Nintendo’s release cycle sees many years between console releases.
He will have to move on to something else; he's unemployed and seeking work. But he says he will always be around to help the Nintendo community on 48th Street.
“I will continue to practice this until my health declines from advanced age,” he says.
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