Shortages of all Nintendo Switch models will likely continue well into 2022, a new report has revealed.
According to Nikkei, Nintendo will only be able to produce approximately 24 million Switch units by the end of March 2022, which is the end of the company's fiscal year. Although this may appear to be a large number of consoles to produce, it is significantly less than Nintendo had hoped to achieve.
Due to shipping constraints and chip shortages, Nintendo has struggled to keep a ready supply of Switch units available for purchase at retailers for the past year and a half.
Unfortunately, these issues are still present, which means that the Switch may remain difficult to obtain in the coming year.
To be more specific, Nintendo planned to produce 30 million Switch units during the current fiscal year, implying that actual output will be 20% lower than anticipated.
As previously stated, the main cause of this problem is still largely associated with a shortage of semiconductors used in the manufacturing process of the Nintendo Switch.
Chip shortages have also resulted in manufacturing shortages for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, which is why the two current-generation consoles have been so difficult to come by. Essentially, this is a problem that is plaguing all console manufacturers at the moment, so it isn't exclusive to Nintendo.
Nintendo had expected to sell well over 25 million Switches in its fiscal year before the shortage occurred. The fact that the company can't even make that many consoles at this point explains why the hardware is so hard to come by.
In general, however, these shortages have harmed Nintendo's business significantly, especially given that the Switch was flying off store shelves long before these production issues arose.
While the already-released "Metroid Dread" and "Mario Party Superstars" will factor into this quarter's figures, Nintendo doesn't have a large lineup of games for the holiday season.
The remakes of "Pokémon Diamond and Pearl", as well as a "Legend of Zelda" inspired Game & Watch handheld, are the most anticipated upcoming releases. A remake of "Advance Wars" has been delayed until spring 2022.
