Mnementh on 06 September 2017
| VAMatt said: What they mean is, shipping them quickly is too expensive, not too hard. They want to use large-quantity surface shipping methods only. So, that mean load container at port in China (or wherever they're made), truck/train transport container to shipyard, load on ship, boat takes a few days to a couple of weeks to reach destination, container is unloaded from ship onto truck, which takes it to distribution center, which sends cases out to retailers. In some cases, there may be one more step in there before retail. There may also be a day or two train ride, depending on the location of the manufacturer and/or distributer, relative to the port. That sounds like about 3-5 weeks from the time they leave the factory to the time they are on store shelves, depending on the location. If they really wanted to get them on shelves quickly, they could ship case loads from China to the retailers. But, that would probably cost them $35 or so per unit, maybe even more. With their aversion to losing money on consoles, I can understand why they don't want to do that. But, lets be honest. Its not that they can't get them on shelves quickly, just that they're not willing to pay for it. If you add that month or so to the month or so it probably takes to ramp up production, and another month or so for parts manufacturers to ramp up production before then, you're looking at 3ish months from the time they decide to increase production to the time those units are on shelves. Even if I'm wrong, and it really takes twice that long, the shortage should end very soon. If it doesn't, we'll know they're full of shit about trying to meet demand. |
Well, they said before they ship more in August and September. So we are in a phase of increasing shipments. If your calculations right (and it looks fine for me), this means they decided that back in May. At that point it probably was clear enough that this shortage was not only through initial demand but by momentum. They probably already decided on another increase in production for the holidays. But will this all be enough? I expect a better situation not before next year.
