One of the biggest problems with consoles is that they can be hard to make at times, and if a developer isn’t prepared for the demand, there are going to be shortages. For Nintendo, the Nintendo Switch has had these issues in a major way. To be fair, after the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo set their goals pretty low for the launch window. They felt that 2 million units worldwide at launch would be a fair goal. But demand for it was much higher than anticipated.
Ever since, they’ve been struggling to fulfill demand, and although sales of the Nintendo Switch are in the millions (near or over 5 million at last estimates) it’s not hard to say that those sales would be nearly double if Nintendo was able to keep the Switch in stock.
The managing director for Nintendo, Shinya Takahashi, spoke with Lemonde during the Japan Expo tour, and noted how sorry Nintendo was for Switch shortages. However, he did offer hope for the future:
“But as our president announced a few days ago, we were able to improve our production line, which means that we will be able to deliver more consoles for the period that is opening up.”
He didn’t elaborate on how Nintendo had improved the Switch making process, but he assured Lemonde that more were coming in the upcoming part of the year. This makes sense in many ways, not the least of which is because demand for the Nintendo Switch isn’t dying down, and two, the holiday season will be coming soon. With both Thanksgiving and Christmas on the way, you can expect Nintendo to do anything and everything it can to make sure there are plenty of Switch’s on store shelves for people to get.
