Nintendo President warns of console shortage in 2022

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has warned about a possible shortage of Switch consoles in 2022, with a supply chain issue affecting both OLED and standard models.

In an interview with Kyoto Shimbun, Furukawa revealed how Nintendo coped with the global semiconductor shortage that’s affected tech sectors including the mobile phone, automobile, and computer industries, among many others.

Despite strong sales for the Nintendo Switch and OLED in 2021, the company will also battle worldwide supply chain strains that could contribute to a console shortage.

Furukawa said the company lowered its target for how many console units it wants to ship in early 2022 but “if the supply stagnation is prolonged, it may not reach the plan,” according to the report.

Nintendo Switch shortage issues

This comes off the back of a Black Friday season that forced Nintendo to explore different avenues of transporting Switch consoles in North America and Europe such as airlift and railroads, respectively.

Even still, Furukawa said the company wasn’t able to meet the holiday season’s demand as they look forward to the new year.

“We cannot say that we were able to supply enough to meet the demand after Black Friday,” he said.

Along with the base Nintendo Switch console, the company also has the Switch Lite and the new Switch OLED model.

Popular consumer electronics like the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S have been hard to come by since they launched. Nintendo could experience a similar supply strain in 2022 with its Switch family of consoles.

In September 2021, Xbox boss Phil Spencer told The Wrap about issues holding back Series X|S production that was “regretfully [going to] be with us for months and months, definitely through the end of this calendar year and into the next calendar year.”

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