If you or a loved one has been trying to track down an OLED Switch this year, you might have more trouble finding one for the foreseeable future, as Nintendo is producing fewer Switch consoles due to a part shortage.
Nikkei reports the company will be manufacturing a total of around 24 million Switch units during its current fiscal year, which is about 20% fewer than it originally projected 30 million. This is largely due to a shortage of semiconductors and “other electronic parts.” Nikkei goes on to say these production bottlenecks began around the spring season for components like microcomputers, which required Nintendo to revise its production targets and notify its suppliers about cuts. The supply crunch has also had an impact on the Switch’s sales year over year, with a 37% fall in monthly sales to 214,000 units compared to last September. The company had projected around 25.5 million Switch units sold in the 2021 fiscal year, which was already less than the 28.83 million it sold the previous year. But now it’s likely the company will undersell on that front, as well.
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All of this is to say that, if you, like me, have been scrambling trying to find an OLED Switch since the new model launched last month, it doesn’t sound like things are going to get much easier for us any time soon. I suppose I’ll make do with my original Switch model for the time being. Though it might be time to either replace or repair my Super Mario Odyssey joy-cons because the drift has finally found me after four years.
