ArnoldRimmer said:
The bold part is very vague and just claims that this problem will be solved, but it doesn't give any explanation why that should be the case. Anyway, I googled around and found some more information on this. Indeed, there are reports particularly mentioning supply issues for the 32GB flash memory chip produced by Toshiba: http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/31/nintendo-fights-parts-shortage-for-switch-wsj.html
But according to the teardowns by iFixit and techinsights: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Switch+Teardown/78263 http://techinsights.com/about-techinsights/overview/blog/nintendo-switch-teardown/
...the 32GB flash memory chip was placed on a separate storage board, probably in order to be able to use flash memory chips from multiple manufacturers and with different capacities. Apparently, Nintendo is already using different flash memory chips from at least two different companies (Toshiba and Samsung): http://techinsights.com/techinsights/img/teardown/nintendo-switch/main-unit-2.jpg https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/BfRaEw2VLngWYsob.huge
So those eMMC flash memory chips do not really explain the supply problems; the Switch hardware is by design not limited to one particular flash memory chip that might have supply issues, it is compatible with various flash memory chips from multiple companies. So getting a few million eMMC flash memory chips can't be an unsolveable problem for Nintendo. So please, give me another, better explanation why Nintendo should suddenly be able to significantly ramp up production in Q4. The explanations so far do not sound very convincing to me. |
Production increases have to be planned a negotioated. You can't just snap your fingers and have production increased by next week.
An increase in production needs to go down the entire supply chain and the bottleneck could be anywhere, be it from the company that delivers the screens producing at capacity and having another non-nintendo order to fullfill, or scarcity of flash memory in the whole market right now.
Some of these conflictsprobably will resolve around fall.
That's why these contracts are negotioated months in advance, because it can take significant time before production can be meaningfully increased and before that increase takes hold in the market. Production for Switch for example started last october indicating they slowly ramped up production to arrive at 2.7 at the end of march and then produced at a rate of approximately 0.6m per month after that. In March after the strong launch they decided to ramp up production. It is normal for that to take 3-6 months. That's just how the industry works.
