Nintendo is having to cut its planned production of Nintendo Switch consoles for this fiscal year. The company had originally planned to produce 30 million Switch consoles by next March. According to a report by Nikkei, the company will now only be able to produce 24 million consoles.
Nintendo had planned to produce 30 million consoles due to the ongoing popularity of the console and the recent release of the new OLED model. However, the company has been affected by the ongoing chip and component shortages that are also blighting other major tech companies. Sony and Microsoft have been hit with similar production issues for their new generation PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. It has been virtually impossible for gamers to find the consoles on shelves since they were released last year. The difference for Nintendo is that the Switch has now been on the market for over 4 years.
The ongoing supply shortage is likely to continue for some time but it shouldn’t have too much impact on the overall success of the Nintendo Switch. According to the latest figures, the console had sold 89m units as of June. That puts it just 12m units behind Nintendo’s most successful console of all time, the Wii. In the US, the Switch had a 33-month streak of being the best-selling console. The PS5 was finally able to take the Nintendo Switch’s crown in September. Prior to that, the Nintendo Switch had been number one every month since November 2018.
Although the Switch is still on track to becoming Nintendo’s best-selling console ever, it could get there faster if not for the production issues of the past year and a half. For the time being, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are all trying to get their consoles in stock for the holiday period.