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Kai_Mao on 23 June 2017
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Aeolus451 said:
KLAMarine said:

Does this methodology you describe eliminate the possibility that Nintendo is just terrible at anticipating demand or perhaps external factors have come into play like a NAND shortage?

A number of outlets are reporting or have reported on NAND shortages:

https://www.kitguru.net/components/matthew-wilson/dram-and-nand-supply-shortage-expected-to-last-until-2018/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ssd-hdd-shortage-nand-market,33112.html

https://www.techpowerup.com/234565/no-relief-for-dram-and-nand-shortages-in-sight-considerable-supply-only-in-2018

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nand-flash-memory-supply-shrinking-ssd-prices-rising/

 

And Nintendo needs these components to assemble Switch units. They're competing with smart phones:

 

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/05/31/demand-for-nintendo-switch-leads-to-nintendo-and-apple-battling-for-scarce-parts/

https://www.slashgear.com/apple-is-to-blame-for-your-nintendo-switch-shortage-30486866/

http://bgr.com/2017/05/30/switch-console-and-iphone-8-parts/

 

So if you're looking to place blame for Switch shortages on a conspiracy theory, please understand that a shortage can have multiple causes. In the Switch's case, a NAND shortage or Nintendo's inability to anticipate runaway demand.

Unless, like Curl-6 stated, Toshiba and smartphone makers are in on the conspiracy too to limit the supply of Nintendo Switch units out on store shelves.

So you're trying to say that all or most of nintendo consoles/products' shortages were due to part shortages instead of gigantic incompetence on nintendo's part or that nintendo is using scarcity marketing to sell their products by just looking at the switch? You've got to be kidding me. 

ugh. I'm talking about a common business strategy that alot of businesses use to increase their sales. There's nothing of a conspiracy in anything I'm saying. Some of you are even agreeing with me that nintendo has used this strategy before with other products. I'm just saying that nintendo uses it as much as they can. 

But for this particular situation, with what we know in regards to manufacturing parts and assembly lines being bidded and prioritized, its no wonder Nintendo, even if they could, struggle getting more prioritization for parts and assembly lines to produce more Switch units. And Nintendo pretty much was open about how much they were producing for the initial launch (about 2+ million) and were open to manufacturing more if demand increases. Of course, easier said than done right? Considering what happened to the Wii U and Nintendo losing money for a few years, do you blame them for underestimating demand? Also look back on their overall sales history from the GameCube to the Wii then to the Wii U. Not really consistent sales wise. Wii Us were on shelves and were just there...sitting and waiting to be sold, leading to being Nintendo's worst selling home console....EVER! Yes, there were a variety of reasons why that happened, but it happened and it significantly affected Nintendo's bottom line that had to be made up by the comeback of the 3DS, DLC, amiibos, and probably careful stocking of units of their respective consoles. Not as bad as Sony's bottom line when the PS3 struggled out of the gate and was bleeding money, but it was a struggle nonetheless.

Remember, Nintendo had its first loss back in 2012 in decades, which lasted until 2014 or so. Nintendo doesn't want to lose money and have said they don't intend to sell Switch units at a loss. Then your hear the news about Nintendo actually shipping new Switch units by air mail, which is pretty pricey, and the recent news about chips and other parts being scare for a variety of devices being made, which led to the news your hear now about Nintendo and Apple. So I think in this particular situation, I don't think we can assume artificial shortages just because of history, Nintendo's fault or not (and I don't even know much about how those shortages of the past came to be, such as the original NES).