Nintendo: We never expected the Switch to sell this much

[Nautilus]

ArnoldRimmer said:

Soundwave said:

In that case they might be stoking artificial shortages to some degree. 

NAND flash is not some magically rare component,  it's in literally billions of devices, Nintendo's orders of 20 million year even are nothing in the grand scheme of production for such parts. 

There were almost 1.5 billion (B as in billion) smartphones shipped last year, virtually all of them have NAND flash. 

Exactly. A few million flash memory chips are nothing, that's just a welcome (but ultimately: lousy) excuse for not shipping more units.

This is what the "shortage" situation probably is really about:

Nintendo isn't shipping as many units as they could, if they really wanted, they could very well produce/ship more units. But that might have increased production/shipment costs a little, and Nintendo wasn't willing to do that, believing that such a step would hurt them in more than one way:

- higher production costs = smaller profit

- a little scarcity isn't so bad either, being easily available everywhere after just a short time might suggest to customers that the product isn't so hot after all, and that there's no hurry to instantly buy the product

So Nintendo talks about certain components being scarce, but doesn't mention that this is just a half-truth. And come holiday season, these shortages will suddenly mostly be resolved, what a lucky coincidence...

Well, playing devil advocate, what company wants to sell their product at a loss?Especially when said product is doing extremely well?Nintendo could ship more units through planes, like they did back in march, but that would skyrocket the price of each unit, and they would have to either pass on the cost to the final rpice or lose money.And none of them is really a situation a company wants to be in.A steady growth in shipments with a feasible and financially sound decision(in the sense that it keeps the profit margins or at the very least doesnt make them bleed money) is the best and probably the only decision any company would take.