Nintendo announced yesterday that, all Switch consoles, will not be shipped in Japan, US and Europe shipping will continue. The company admitted that they’re “unable to keep up with rising demand” as it was reported by Nikkei.
The delay caused by COVID-19 is slowly improving, but the manufacturers at China and Vietnam has not fully recovered its operational capability. “We haven’t been able to keep up the supply,” said a source from Nintendo. At this moment, the scarcity in Nintendo Switch console has promoted an increase in its value, in some online platforms, new Switch can only be found around $500 and $700.
Nintendo has been heavily affected by COVID-19, recently the company was forced to suspend their three decade long, repair service, Shuntaro Furukawa has openly talked about how the virus is affecting the company and the repercussions of the virus. In the eve of one of the most successful years of the company, in January Furukawa warned that “prolonged problems will affect the product delivery plans”.
Nintendo started the year close to the goal of selling 18 million Switch units, that was their initial goal for the financial year, the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons together with its special edition, and the new Nintendo Switch Lite Coral Edition increased the sales of the small console, as of today, about “830,000 Switch and Switch Lite systems were sold between Feb. 24 and March 29, bringing cumulative sales to over 13 million units, according to gaming magazine Famitsu.”
Currently, the Switch is being manufactured by Foxconn (Taiwan) and Hosiden (Japan), but several hardware parts are still being made in China, the rise of the Coronavirus might extend the delay of new consoles in America and Europe. Nintendo has been reportedly avoiding a bottleneck in the production by hiring new manufacturers in Vietnam.
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