I see a few other people have also answered you, didn't read through those before answering so I hope I am not saying the same things other people have talked about you with already, would feel bad if all you're getting are echoes and no proper discussionWeepingAngels said:It's so funny how many people bought a new console for a non exclusive game. You didn't need a Switch to play Zelda and I'll bet you didn't need one to play those indie games either. Try to imagine the impact on N64 sales if Super Mario 64 could be played just as well on the SNES.Guffe said:For me, Zelda and a few indie titles was enough to buy it, for some it wasn't.
They used this excuse for the Wii too. Failing to do market research is the same as deliberately underproducing. Same thing happened with the NES Mini and Amiibos, seeing a pattern yet? Nintendo plays it safe but that doesn't mean they get to pretend to be surprised everytime this happens.4) Deliberately understock the Switch?
This sounds just weird to me, I think they just didn't guess it would sell so much? I mean pretty quickly after all the pre-orderes and such could be made they had to start thinking about doubling production. Why would they even do that? They'd lose money on such a move wouldn't they? I just think they thought that it wouldn't sell as much as it did at launch, and thought that when more games had come out and it was time for Xmas that would be the main sellingtime for the Switch... I can not find one good reason why to deliberately produce too little of a product.
Well on the first one it is true that I could have Zelda on the WiiU, but I also found the titles they have announced for the future to be enough to warrant a purchase at the start (Xenoblade2, Fire Emblem, ShinMegamiTensei the first ones to pop into my mind, I might get the new Mario and then I will most likely get Splatoon2 and maybe MK8Deluxe). That and the portability factor (see my point on me thinking the Switch is actually a handheld and not a homeconsole)
On the production amount I agree that they maybe should actually produce more due to what you said, which is that it has happened before on several products in the near past. But I know next to nothing about big corporations and how they calculate possible sales etc. so I don't think I am the correct person to discuss these things with.
But you could look at it from the point of view that making 10 million of them and only selling 5 would be worse than making 2mil and selling all of them? I mean if they would've done the 10mil amount and only sold half, then everyone would be saying stuff like "they are so full of themselves" and "did they actually think they would sell so many of such a crappy console" etc. So from their perspective I can understand the "make an amount of consoles which we think will be around the amount we will sell, look at those figures to see how much we need to make for the next shipment or holidayseason". Because Nintendo is a company which is out to make a profit, and that way of working makes sure they don't make a big loss at least, even if it for the consumers might feel a bit dickish that some can't get their hands on the product immediately if they, like it happened now, make too few and don't meet demand on the first shipment.
I try to look at things from several perspectives, which is why coming to a thread like this and looking at how different people view things is a good thing in my opinion. Not only does it open my (maybe) narrow view, but hopefully this same thinking and thoughts go out to companies which leads to better products and businessmodels in the future.