Reggie Fils-Aime is never short on optimism, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Those odds right now being whether or not the Nintendo Switch will be easy to come by when it launches. While most of the world and current rumors say "no," ol' Reggie seems to think it won't be a problem. The Nintendo of America President sat down with Wired to answer a bunch of burning questions about the Switch on a wide variety of topics.
He references the NES Classic launch, which infamously suffered its share of supply shortage issues, and is the thing many are pointing to now to back up their claim of a similar situation with the Switch. Here's what he said:
"From what I’ve read, the concern seems to stem from the lack of ability to buy NES Classic. So what I would say is this: Two million for essentially the first month is a huge number, especially when you look and see that this is not peak seasonality. This is essentially the first three weeks of March. Our focus is making sure that the consumer who wants to buy a Nintendo Switch can buy a Nintendo Switch. That’s how we build our supply chain, that’s how we think through the amount of product that’s available."
To be fair, consoles, in general, have a colossal recent history of being hard to find around launch (not counting the Wii U). Xbox One and PS4 both had it happen, not to mention that Nintendo's original Wii console was quite a retail unicorn when it first came out. Many are expecting the Switch to do very well, and it is already far more talked about than the Wii U was at this same juncture.
At the same point, Nintendo could (and likely will) play the supply and demand game with the public and generate interest in the console by virtue of it being hard to find. It's a pretty standard practice, and frankly, it works like a charm.
Have you already pre-ordered your Nintendo Switch? Or are you waiting to see how the console shakes out once it's in the hands of the public?
Source: [Wired]
