As you may know, if you've been trying to find one, the Nintendo Switch has become a bit of a scarce product since it's launch in March. As was the case with the Wii, the Switch is incredibly hard to find in stores and has been marked as sold out on online retailers basically since launch as well (anecdotally, the Walmart near where I live hasn't had a single Switch in stock since launch that I've seen).
Forbes' Dave Thier spoke with GameStop's Senior Director of Merchandising, Eric Bright, who stated:
It's exceeding our expectations...We knew it would be a high demand product, but our Switch allocations are selling out not in days but in hours...the demand is so high that consumers have to react quickly to be able to get their hands on them.Bright went on to talk about how you shouldn't expect the Switch to have a stable supply anytime soon, saying, "Right now we're not seeing sales going down at all, and I would expect that to continue for quite some time." The recent release of Mario Kart 8 for the Switch, which is breaking franchise records, is probably only making things worse in terms of finding a Switch, so it might be smart to look for a Switch during the time between major title launches on the system.
Even Nintendo seems to be surprised by the immense demand for the Switch, even going as far as making shipments by plane to keep up with it. In a report by the Wall Street Journal a company representative said, "We carried some of the Switches by plane in March to serve our customers more promptly." Although the company has gone back to shipping by boat at this point, having sent their supply out to retailers and expanded the production, and presumably delivery lines. An Ace Research Institute analyst, Hideki Yasuda, spoke with the WSJ saying, "Air is a big profit-squeezer because it could cost additional 5,000 yen per unit," this converts to $45 per unit. Nintendo has already shipped 2.74 million units and plans to ship 10 million more, so if demand spikes even more throughout the year and they need to ship by plane again it could cost them a pretty penny to do so.
Have you been having trouble finding a Switch? Do you think Nintendo is doing its best to keep up with demand? Let us know in the comments!
