Could someone please explain to me what the hell is wrong with Nintendo?

[C14N]

I never said they were alone, just alone among gaming hardware (and software) producers. I also found the fake scarcity of Apple products to be rather pathetic.

Also, Nintendo is on a better position to afford it than the others. While it is true they don't have the same raw capital as Microsoft, they are on par with Sony and, most importantly, are the only ones that, since a couple generations ago, were not producing their consoles at a lost. Unlike the competition, every console they sold is a net gain.

You can think it's pathetic all you want, I'm sure their hundreds of billions in cash and status as one of the top 10 most valuable companies in the world will influence them more than someone's perception.

Nintendo is nowhere near the kind of business empire that Sony is. Sony has it's hand in electronics, smart devices, film, TV, movies and so many other things. They're a huge diverse conglomerate with massive resources. Your idea of Nintendo being able to afford it is kind of circular logic though. You're arguing that they can afford to make a loss on their consoles because they've never made a loss on their consoles. Selling individual consoles at a gain isn't nearly enough though, because there are huge up front costs to pay off too, which means they have to sell enough to pay that off with the profits, leaving relatively little wiggle room on the stock numbers. I'd hazard a guess that a company like Nintendo controls less of their own supply line than the likes of MS and Sony too.

Also, bear in mind that while they underestimated early sales of the Wii and Switch, the opposite was true with the Wii U, which ended up with plenty of unsold stock. I don't think there's anything fake about the scarcity at all, they're just hedging their bets. I'm sure if they had a crystal ball that showed the demand for Switches would be 5 million at launch, they would have done everything they could to get 5 million consoles in stores for launch.