SuperChunk is absolutely correct.
Nintendo airlifted consoles into December. Normal transport takes weeks to go from production to retailer shelf. So because the current stock was moved forward to a December shelf date instead of today, we have a shortage. Anytime a company airlifts their product, there will be shortages after the fact.
That was done to prevent shortages in December which would have looked far worse than a shortage in Jan.
So there is a challenge to get product to shelves without either more airlifting (and it's a pain in the butt to spontaneously coordinate a combination of airlifting and product already in the normal shipping lanes out of the holiday season when it's planned in advance) or opening new production lines (and that's a bad idea because you'd have to close it right back down once the shortages are alleviated and it takes a long time to set up and operate a new production line anyway).
The rEVOLution is not being televised
