NintendObs Thinks: Deconstructing the myth of "next-gen" shortages.
As they exaggerated manageable issues to mask their relative failures.
2020. COVID-19 aside — and excluding Animal Crossing New Horizons — if one thing in gaming, long gone, defined this particular year, it was the hype the likes of which we’d never seen before geared towards PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. (…Mostly PlayStation 5.) Though Nintendo were acting all calm, cool and collected to make sure none of their moves would be used against them again, they were actually so concerned that a few months before the new consoles launched they issued a corporate briefing reinstating their positions and hinting at their “next gaming system.” Until the matter quickly subsided and Nintendo of America was able to brag about Nintendo Switch beating PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in sales during their month of releases in the United States, the biggest videogame market in the world.
So what happened? I guess we don’t exactly know. But what we do know is what people believe happened. What they were made to believe had happened. One of the key and most resounding arguments can be summarized by the following assumption: “If only there were enough supplies of PlayStation 5s, Sony would have made short work of Nintendo Switch.” Well, that’s not actually true. And the recent Financial Results Explanatory Material from Nintendo, along with the Full-Year Financial Forecast Modifications it explains, give another outlook as to why the shortages from the competition were not as severe or could have been supervised with a lot less fanfare if they wanted to.
Because what this spread-out belief carefully forgets to mention is that everyone in their related industries is affected by the still-ongoing semiconductor shortages, the ones held responsible for the limited amounts of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles to this very day. And if Sony and Microsoft are affected, so is Nintendo, who nevertheless during that same holiday season witnessed Nintendo Switch having its “largest showing since launch.” You cannot have me believe companies a lot larger than Nintendo cannot secure the releases of their new consoles when under the same circumstances Nintendo Switch had its best quarter so far. This is why I’m positive Sony and Microsoft saw it more advantageous to use the situation as a scapegoat rather than to even dare to compete.