High consumer demand for Nintendo’s handheld hybrid, has made the Nintendo Switch a near impossible find on Online stores, and physical retail chains. The COVID-19 spread has compromised Nintendo’s ability to manufacture and ship the units to retailers worldwide.
The Switch remains the highest selling console – on a monthly basis – despite the situation, as the console has sold about 60 million units to date. The shortages have led to a spike in price on online retailers.
A Switch Lite can easily run for $300+ on amazon, the unit usually retails at $199, and the regular “premium” unit is selling for $450+ when the price of that unit is normally at $299.
Considering that the unit needs a protective case (trust me on this, do not learn the lesson the hard way) and a game, the investment on a Switch Handheld can easily run desperate costumers a $500-$600 price tag.
While Nintendo is riding a wave of success stemming from phenomenal sales of its first party titles, and hardware. Things are not all rosy and Peach in Mario Land, as previously reported by the Never-Ending Realm, Nintendo is waging a battle against a Class Action Lawsuit since the summer of 2019.
If Nintendo were to lose the lawsuit, the units would have to pulled out from the market, until they are replaced by defect free ones. It is unlikely that this would happen, as the damage to the company would be massive, but it is likely that some compromise will be reached eventually, in which Nintendo has to agree to fix everyone’s Joy-Cons (and perhaps replace them with new ones) which would also run the company billions of dollars in costs.
It is not clear however, how this would affect Switch Lite owners, as their entire unit would have to be replaced. On our Facebook page, comments on the issue have revealed that an extremely high percentage of Switch owners have suffered from the dreaded issue. One of our readers has even bought 3 sets of Joy-Cons, with multiple others complaining that their bought a second set of Joy-Cons only to have them fail again.
“The proof is on the pudding”, as they say, and it is clear that the Joy-Cons are defective ( I, myself, have suffered from the issue), and Nintendo has taken no measures to fix the root of the problem. It is understandable that they haven’t taken the proper measures, because doing so would be an admittance that they have knowingly sold 60 million unit of a defective hand-held.
Still, this is an issue that started making waves almost as soon as the Switch Launched back in 2017. For the life of me, I cannot understand how these issues didn’t pop up during the testing runs of the machine (I would wager that they did). Nintendo chose to ignore the problem to avoid delays, and the consequential costs of their design flaw.
If Nintendo does end up losing the Lawsuit, it might serve as stern warning for other companies who would try to pull off a similar stunt to save themselves money. Sometimes, procrastination and greed can lead to turning what was once a containable issue, into a massive problem that is literally; 60 million times worse.
Perhaps the manufacturing shortages are the best thing to happen to Nintendo. The more units that the company sells, the more units that it would have to fix (or replace), if it loses the Class Action Lawsuit.