TetraGenesis
Member
Jesus Christ, I just want to buy a fucking Switch. LET ME.
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So how bad is the Switch stock situation?
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Oh man, the thirst is real here. I'm so glad my wife woke me up and said "buy a Switch" on the eve of it's release. Walked into Meijer and nabbed the last ticket. Heh. If it wasn't evident as to why she forced me out the door...she vegged 180hours into BotW. lol I'm at a mere 60 (damned school).
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
Man I remember those 9 months or so when we weren't even sure whether or not we were getting the N3DS in the US. I keep tweeting at Nintendo "let me give you my money!"
Isn't there Minecraft in May? As old as that game is, it still moves systems. I think the allure of the Switch , with it's form factor, Minecraft may just help Nintendo through May. After that is ARMS. That's a wildcard, so we'll have to wait and see about that one. No clue about July, though.
EDIT: Oh yea, the post below reminded me: Splatoon 2. That will move systems for sure.
Resistance100
Member
Splatoon in July with Minecraft and Arms in between. It will be fine
This is less about "it takes time to build things" and more "Nintendo is horribly incompetent at supply chain management".
Plenty of sophisticated electronics with high demand manage to be stocked on shelves within a week or two of release. See: cell phones, other consoles, tablets.
Splatoon 2 definitely is a system seller I would say.
Nintendo's status as a high demand product maker is not as strong, though, and being conservative after the Wii U is not an illogical thing to be at all.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
They did just adjust their numbers. Manufacturing is always going to take time.
Jaded Alyx
Member
Splatoon 2 isn't a system seller?
J
Jpop
Unconfirmed Member
Nintendo has released a massive amount of Switches and it can be seen they are ramping up production still.
The Units hit the stores and sell out, it isn't the same as not releasing stock.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
You make it sound like Nintendo doesn't restock the Switch, when they continually keep selling out their restocked shipments.
New iPhones generally sell about 10 million in their launch weekend - and you can find them in stores the next week. Selling a million Switches in a month is great but let's refrain from believing it's impossible to produce more than that.
If you're getting good sales, congrats! But not keeping up with demand just means you're not doing your job well.
That's the point. If you keep restocking and there's still never any stock it means you're under shipping. Seriously no other major electronic faces this despite many selling more.
Nah, I don't think Splatoon is a system seller but definitely arguable. Just from a business perspective it is fucking incredibly irritating to see such a demand for your products yet people can't go out and purchase them. If this were any other company we would shit on them HARD but since it's Nintendo they get a pass. And since gamers have no backbone, they will just continue to buy things and praise Nintendo.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Err the PS4 had stock problems for months.
It seems like a bunch of people just have short term memories.
Couldn't agree more. They also cancelled the NES classic (quite possibly one of the dumbest decisions I've seen Nintendo make) so they are only making 2 machines now in the Switch and 3DS. They should theoretically be able to make more but that's just a guess, trying to noodle my way through this nonsensical Nintendo shit.
Diablohead
Member
Big phone brands have multiple factories pumping them out because they know that all the stock will most likely sell, the switch coming after the wii u was still up to chance and guess work, of course they are not going to over produce and spend all that money until they know they can shift them.
But Sony sold WAY more units. In the 1st 24 hours after the console was out, they sold 1 million units and that was just in North America. How many Switch's have actually sold between launch and now?
Splatoon is definitely a system seller in Japan (less so in the west, but still strong). Not just sales, but cultural impact.
Nintendo is just very conservative. They played it safe for the launch, but ended up way underproducing. My guess it will be fairly hard to get the rest of the year.
So Nintendo only has one factory to produce Amiibo's, 3DS, & the Switch? Cause all of them have had stock issues.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
They only released intially in th US and Canada. The switch is a world wide launch. Again the memories of a gold fish.
They've been underproducing products forever. This is nothing new.
Bruce Springsteen
Member
dat slow trickle to maintain buzz
They didn't underproduce for the Wii U, which led to major problems. That's why they've been smart here
Because people are using facts and logic rather than just moaning about it, that means they're making excuses?
I do not think people take manufacturing costs into account. They cannot just simply go out and take over another facility and start making more. Nintendo, for better or for worse, has far less available assets than cell phone companies, Sony, Microsoft etc...because they are a much smaller company.
If they doubled Switch production, which it seems they have, then this looks like this output is within their means. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the people who are working at these facilities are working around the clock: AKA no downtime.
I do believe Nintendo went into this conservative, and I cannot blame them. Why invest in so many manufacturing sites after the Wii U debacle? Nintendo is probably looking into expanding their production for the Switch, but deals cannot be done over night (I'm sure Nintendo cannot walk into a facility and say "we're taking over.")
V
Vilix
Unconfirmed Member
IMO it's completely reversed. Whenever PlayStations are sold out it's expected and people just wait. But when Nintendo releases a hot item people expect them to be fully stocked. The present Switch situation reminds me of the first year of the Wii release. Not just in shortages, but in complaints about Nintendo undershipping product.
I feel like whoever is making decisions there as far as making gauging what products to make and how many to make is fucking retarded. I feel like by June, everybody that truly wants a Switch should have one and by September you should just be able to walk into Target, Bestbuy, etc and buy one.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Yeah I mean this was PS4's launch Schedule.
PlayStation 4 hitting shelves on November 15th in the US for $399, November 29th in Europe
PlayStation 4 won't launch in Japan until February 2014
People just seem to convienently forget all this.
The switch was the only worldwide launch this gen.
Which is one of the reasons why they've been able to stay around so long. They might miss a lot of money when they underproduce, but they don't lose as much when it flops.
Diablohead
Member
who said they only had one factory? they produced what they felt was correct and the switch did very well.
Since you've been playing videogames, how many products has Nintendo released and there have been stock issues?
Oh no I was asking if they had only one factory (hence the question mark.) I'm still trying to figure this out. I'm not only talking about the Switch, I'm talking about all of their products. There was a massive issue during the holidays trying to find the 3DS and well the whole NES classic situation.
Roufianos
Member
They launched worldwide 2 weeks later. PS4 had sold over 4 million worldwide by Christmas and Nintendo have sold just over 2 million in the same time frame.
Can't blame them for not shipping as much as Sony though, it's not the holiday season and their last console was a disaster.
Well I live in the UK so it's never as bad as the US since we don't have as big a landmass to transport things.
Ah, makes sense.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
That's two months. The switch is at roughly 2 million for one month and that was Christmas. People holding Nintendo's shipping of the switch to entirely different standards than Sony and Microsoft.
So a couple of points here:
1.) Apple has a regular cadence and volume to make them THE thing a lot of assembly lines make. The Switch will never do the volume that an iPhone does.
2.) There are *some* iPhones available in the next week. In the case of the 6S Plus and 7 Plus, they took MONTHS to be available on store shelves, especially in the case of the hard-to-produce Jet Black variant.
3.) These factories don't sit idle waiting for another order of Switches to come in. And since Nintendo isn't a high-clout producer, they have to wait in line - any stock that's coming through now was probably part of the originally planned manufacturing run. Increased production would have to bump some other customer ($$$$$$$$$) or be squeezed in via overtime, etc. (also $$$$$). Unless you're Apple/Samsung/et al, you can't ramp production up quickly. I'm not really familiar with the exact timeline, but it's on the order of months, not days or weeks.
How exactly is a console that sold the second most for a month in the history of video games underproduced?
Is there an issue of keeping up with demand? Sure, but is a company supposed to always expect to break sales records and keep as much stock to break those records, when their last product flopped?
Is there an issue of keeping up with demand? Sure, but is a company supposed to always expect to break sales records and keep as much stock to break those records, when their last product flopped?
I'm a bit out of the loop, does anybody know if there will be a new model with an improved dock to avoid scratching (I assume, eventually)? And if so, when we can expect to start to see these models? I'm guessing that they have quite a few units to clear out of the channel first, so it could be a while.
no.
One thing I just remembered is that Sony and Microsoft also had more time to prepare for their launches than Nintendo. Xbox One & PS4 preorders went up in June and the consoles were released In November. While for Nintendo, preorders went up in January and the consoles were released in March.
Alex_Mexico
Member
This
Alex_Mexico
Member
That's not en excuse. It's not that they had more time to prepare. Is that they chose to be better prepared. Nintendo fucked up.
Roufianos
Member
It's a month and a half, same as the Switch. PS4 launched mid / late November.
It seems like you're trying to correct me on the different standards but I too was making that point.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
Torontonian here, I found mines at the Source after they had 100 units restocked. Never underestimate people counting out the smaller stores.
To elaborate on point three, which I think escapes people, there are contracts involved. As stated, Nintendo is s small fry in the grand scheme of things. These facilities have a finite amount of real estate, with multiple contracts to honor (a lot of facilities will have several companies under one roof). If Nintendo manages to squeeze in, they are not going to have enough real estate to run a full scale operation.
Where ever they are producing these Switch's, it's the best care scenario for them atm. Like I said earlier, they are most likely looking into expanding...which does not happen over night.
Not an excuse at all, cause I'm definitely not the one to make excuses for them like other folks. Just something I thought about. It should actually show how ill prepared they were.
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