The 30-million units target is not projected to be reached as Nintendo reports.
For anyone still searching for a Nintendo Switch, they may need to keep waiting. Nikkei’s report back in May 2021 saw that Nintendo planned to hit a goal of creating 30-million Switch units to be available to go to market by the end of the fiscal year, March 31, 2022. The plan was meant to create a steady supply of regular Switch models as the production of the new Switch OLED versions were released.
However, it appears that Nikkei’s latest report on November 2, 2021, confirms that the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate company will only have about 24 million units ready to sell by the March deadline.
Nintendo’s president, Shuntaro Furukawa, mentioned in May and at a press conference, reporting the gaming company’s fiscal year 2020-21 earnings, that the company is facing production difficulties, “Due to the global shortage of semiconductor materials, we are not able to produce all the products we want to. We are doing everything we can, but there is an increasing sense of uncertainty about production plans.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the semiconductor and chip shortage has only worsened as companies try to come up with new factory expansion plans, but these plans will most likely be in action by 2022 or later. Earlier this past October, AMD CEO, Lisa Su, said “It might take, you know, 18 to 24 months to put on a new plant, and in some cases even longer than that…These investments were started perhaps a year ago.”
The added stress to the chip shortage is that even the automotive industry needs them to produce vehicles as well, so both the gaming and automotive companies have seen these blows to their production lines.
In regard to Nintendo, the production number of Switches is about 89 million units sold so far. Their plan was to surpass their sales last year with 28.83 units sold, but if they can only produce 24 million units by March 2022, this target will surely be missed. It doesn’t look possible for the gaming company to find a short-term increase in production, so consumers looking to buy a Switch in the next year may have to wait until later in 2022 to see a better supply on the market, along with non-inflated prices.
