The company has admitted that it understimated who well the Switch would sell, bluntly putting it in a recent Japanese interview: “Nintendo has never expected the Nintendo Switch to sell this much”.

The company added that one of the main reasons as to why there are still shortages is not because they can’t increase production — they can, and they did — but as Nintendo puts it to Japanese news outlet Mainichi:

“It’s easy to increase the production capacity of the factory. The finished product needs to be delivered from the harbor to the rest of the world, and rushing shipping is an extremely difficult thing to do.”

Source To read more if interested

The CEO of Nintendo said the Switch could outsell the Wii so I don't see it as true. However I think Nintendo underestimated initial demand thinking it will be like the DS and have the system sales explode later.

And the next Pokemon game hasn't even launched yet...

That doesn't mean he actually excpeted it to happen though .... I think Nintendo needed an air of positivity after a terrible January reveal and the flop that was Wii Poo

It's certainly is exciting to think that the Switch and PS4 are doing so well. Can't wait to see how well the Switch does after two Pokemon titles and a Mario xD 

LOL how how much faith he had in the legacy he took over ad was probably hoping for this to phase out quickly and make a traditional HD console.

So, they're admitting that they can create more consoles, so it makes me look like an idiot when I argued with someone that they couldn't.

Not really. They said it's easy to increase production, which they have been doing during major game releases. They just said it's hard to ship it out from "the harbor". 

This sounds familiar.

https://www.vg247.com/2014/08/19/even-sony-doesnt-know-why-ps4-is-selling-so-well/

It's like no one has any idea how their systems sell.

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.