We reported yesterday that Nintendo's own website had assured fans that they were working hard to increase production of the Nintendo Switch until the end of the year, but that hasn't stopped some from speculating that Nintendo may be deliberately keeping production down in order to keep people demanding the console. In a recent interview with Ars Technica, however, Nintendo's Senior Director of Corporate Communications Charlie Scibetta reassures fans yet again that this most certainly is not the case.
"It's definitely not intentional in terms of shorting the market," he said. "We're making it as fast as we can. We want to get as many units out as we can to support all the software that's coming out right now... our job really is to get it out as quick as we can, especially for this holiday because we want to have units on shelves to support Super Mario Odyssey."
"We anticipated there was going to be demand for it, but the demand has been even higher than we thought," he added. "We had a good quantity for launch, we sold 2.7 million worldwide in that first month, said we're going to have 10 million [more] by the end of the fiscal year... Unfortunately, we're in a situation right now where as quick as it's going into retail outlets it's being snapped up. It's a good problem to have, but we're working very hard to try and meet demand."
Do you believe Nintendo would deliberately underproduce, or is it more likely that Nintendo underestimated demand for the console?