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greenmedic88 on 16 January 2017
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I'm going to cut this one down to the biggest gorilla in the room, which would be the $299 price.

For whatever reason, Nintendo has displayed over and over the tendency to under ship during the initial release. In the instance of the Switch, they are launching during what is traditionally the "dead space" for games following the holiday glut, which can be used as the explanation for launching with a relatively limited release.

It doesn't appear to make much sense as the natural instinct is to launch in November, prior to the holiday buying season in the interest of scoring holiday sales, but if the initial inventory is modest, the Switch can still sell out on its initial shipment (I recall hearing 2m initial production run; don't remember the source), allowing Nintendo to make another play on perceived shortages, thus increasing public demand when stories of scarce inventory begin to make the rounds within the video game and even mainstream press.

Under said scenario, expect to see the Switch sell out repeatedly, not due to breaking sales records, but due to limited inventory which may and often does lead to increased demand.

Nintendo may be selling relatively modest numbers of units, but they can rightly say that these are off season sales figures (Nintendo makes the bulk of its sales during the holiday season, more so than MS and SCE) due to modest production numbers which means modest sales projections. They can't sell what hasn't been shipped. At this point, the two disaster scenarios would be:
A) Switch fails to sell even modest initial inventory with stock readily available everywhere
B) Switch easily sells out of initial inventory leading to hoarding, scalping and frustration by those who want one for play but have to pay a scalper's premium or check constantly for inventory at retail

Also recall that the launch price of the 3DS was $250, which dropped within a year in response to the PS Vita price announcement which gives reason to believe that Nintendo has built some flexibility into the $300 initial MSRP, with the option to reduce price, potentially by the 2017 holiday season, pending market conditions. Stockpiling of inventory for the holiday season would come as no surprise as units remain limited at retail through the first three quarters of 2017.

Sound familiar yet?