Nintendo Switch Shortage Will Continue Into 2022

By Logan Moore

A new report has revealed that shortages of all models of the Nintendo Switch will likely continue well into 2022. Over the course of the past year and a half, Nintendo has struggled with keeping a ready supply of Switch units available to purchase at retailers due to shipping constraints and chip shortages. Sadly, these problems are continuing to linger, meaning that the Switch might remain hard to get ahold of moving into next year. 

According to Nikkei, Nintendo is only going to be able to manufacture roughly 24 million units of the Switch by the end of March 2022, which marks the end of the company's fiscal year. This might still seem like a large number of consoles to produce, but the total is pretty drastically below what Nintendo was originally aiming for. To be specific, Nintendo planned to manufacture 30 million Switch units over the course of its current fiscal year, meaning that its actual output will be 20% lower than anticipated. 

As mentioned, the main culprit behind this issue continues to largely be associated with a shortage of semiconductors that are used when creating the Nintendo Switch. Chip shortages as a whole have also led to manufacturing shortages with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X as well, which is why the two current-generation consoles have also been so hard to find. Essentially, this problem is one that is hurting all console manufacturers at the moment, so this isn't solely tied to Nintendo by any means.

In a general sense, though, these shortages definitely hurt Nintendo as a business quite a bit, especially considering that the Switch was flying off of store shelves long before these production issues ever came about. Prior to this shortage coming about, Nintendo had planned to sell well over 25 million units of the Switch in its fiscal year. For the company to not even be able to produce that number of consoles at this point definitely explains why the hardware has been so difficult to find.

Have you been trying to track down a Nintendo Switch for yourself? And how do you feel in a general sense about these shortages continuing onward? Let me know either down in the comments or hit me up on Twitter at @MooreMan12.

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