When it comes to the launch of the Nintendo Switch and the number of consoles that were available at launch, Reggie Fils-Aime believes Nintendo "Dramatically Over-Delievered" to consumers. Fils-Aime says that professional analysts in the field believed the console would sell under 2 million units in its first year, so the company responded appropriately and made 2.8 million consoles available at launch.
As we all know how the story goes, those were gone by the end of the first month.
So now Nintendo, whose last console sold 13.5 million units over its lifetime (the Nintendo Switch will have sold over half that number by the end of the first year according to analysts now), is being berated by consumers for underselling the console to increase demand. While I know its frustrating not to have the console you want right now, hopefully, these words from Reggie will offer people a bit of a reality check.
There was a VERY small community both professionally and mainstream who believed the Nintendo Switch would be a success even a couple months before launch, so frankly, it's no surprise that Nintendo produced their console appropriately. Producing 8 million consoles for launch on the off-chance people will be interested when the current leading experts in the field were explicitly saying it would not is smart business, bottom line.
That still doesn't change the fact that Switch consoles are hard to come by, I know, but maybe Reggie's triggering remarks will wake up the population of the gaming community as to how monumental this turnaround for the company has been, and that while the shortage is frustrating, it's also 100% justified considering the consumer climate prior to launch.
