Topic: Scalpers lick their chops as reports of a console shortage come in.

It appears as though North American (Murica!) and Canadian Nintendo fans should have multiple windows open to their favorite video game retailers as preorders go live today. Things in Japan are already off to a rough start as Nintendo President Furukawa posts a statement that there'll be a Switch 2 console shortage. He states that not all registrations through the Nintendo My Store will be fulfilled due to the shortage.

The console shortage will likely only affect Japan as US region are getting massive of units at launch.

That's the hopeful perspective, and I share it. But the bulk of Switch 2 consoles are manufactured in China. Nintendo are routing China-manufactured Switch 2s' to regions other than North America. And if those regions are coming up short...

If we’re already hearing about shortages before the preorders even go live in the US, you can bet the scalping bots are locked and loaded. I hope retailers have something in place — or it’ll be eBay prices from day one again.

I humbly request that the title of this discussion be changed from "lick their lips" to "lick their chops". Trust me, it'll get the message across.

Done

@Magician Big thanks

It's a shame that there are already console shortages. And scalpers will be scalping. But I hope folks keep in mind that the shortages will end, so they shouldn't feel obligated to purchase from scalpers. Unless having one right now is worth it to them. In which case I guess that's just economics in action

@TrueFace

It's a common tale. Folks who have the extra play money (discretionary income), who didn't get a preorder locked in, and simply can't wait for supply to catch up to demand...will bend a knee to scalpers.

I hate to see it. But if it doesn't hinder their quality of life, I'm unconcerned. It's their money. They can ball out however they like.

In the end that's all Nintendo's fault. They are the ones that produce the console and by limiting production and not having enough produced they create scalpers. It's simple law of supply and demand. Have enough supply to meet your demand the price doesn't go bonkers. Offer to little supply and the price goes up.

Also the stores aren't helping either by allowing people to buy multiple consoles from the same store or even other stores. If I had the money I could walk into Bestbuy by a console there, then walk into Walmart buy one there, walk into Target, and so on and so on.

In the end it's not the scalper's fault that companies allow them to do this.

Scalping is scummy, and I don't care saying it. But yea, people should be allowed to do whatever they want to do.

But botting has taken it to a whole new level with the last few console releases. Honestly, to the point where it's becoming unfair for real people who can't compete with the speed of a bot farm.

Whatever, I guess. Nothing's going to be done about it. I missed out on every online preorder, so I just went in-person to my local Gamestop and thankfully they had a couple console-only preorders left at the end of the day.

I know it sounds bad...but once a year passes and more units are made....then many are gonna not buy from these scalpers. besides these scalpers are gonna just be sitting on unsold inventory and not making money to where they have to lower the price. it happened with the ps5 once more were being produced after after 2 years or so...at least that's i remember reading up on. i'm gonna wait next year or so...when tax season hits. but right now getting one will cost me close to $600 if i was being impatient. besides...my Switch oled is only 3 years old and I haven't had it that long anyways...

@DanijoEX-The-Kumiho Again simple supply and demand. If Nintendo would make enough stock then people wouldn't turn to scalpers. As @Magician said it's people FOMO that makes scalpers. Once there is enough stock the scalpers move on to something else. Honestly you'd think companies like Nintendo would get this and in someway it seems that they are allowing this to happen by creating a shorting and not producing enough. Once the demand goes down like you said the scalpers will lower their price to get rid of all their unsold surplus.

@Tasuki That's a pretty naive view IMO. Nintendo delayed the release of the console several times to work up a huge inventory, and global supply will be over 3x the Switch 1 at launch. You can't just snap your fingers and open more production lines to make systems faster. Especially since they had to move all of their manufacturing out of China in the middle of this to avoid tariffs (not that that worked of course). And storage costs money as well, so you need to start off-loading your supply at some point.

Like, this is the most stock any console launch has ever managed by a wide margin. There's no evidence of intentional shorting going on here.

This was probably the biggest supply launch but that can't never match demands. Even let's say they make 20 mils units that will not last first year even. There's currently 150 mil Switch 1 owners having 20 mil ready won't match the 150 mil wanting to have one.

@Jester676
That's not really how it works. 150 million people didn't want a Switch from the start. ESPECIALLY after the debacle that was the Wii U lol

As always, there will be people who just don't buy things right away. There will be people who are skeptical There will be people who honestly just don't have the money. There will be people who just won't buy a Switch 2 until the next 3D Mario.

Tons of categories that naturally spread out the adoption rate of a console over time.

I think Nintendo is indeed providing an incredible number of consoles at launch, potentially the highest number at a launch ever. But that doesn't help much when you're someone who still couldn't get a preorder.