Topic: Why are there Switch stock issues in Japan?

I live in Europe (the Netherlands) and for some time now the stock issues of the Switch seem to be in the past (luckily). Last weekend I walked into an electronics store and counted over 50 of them piled up, ready to be bought. Other stores and webshops have plenty in stock too. On the other hand, I read that in Japan people still have to stand in line for hours for a CHANCE to buy one, following a lottery system. I'm interested to learn why this is. Seems pretty unfair to me, especially considering Japan is the home of Nintendo.

It largely depends on the market. The average lifestyle in Japan supports short periods of handheld gaming as opposed to playing a traditional console. This means that the demand for something like the Switch is in high demand there compared to other markets around the world. Despite this, even the U.S. is having stock issues still.

Pretty simple, demand for the Switch is greater.

I think a majority of the Switch units produced are headed to North America where there's a larger population. US is arguably the most important market, with Europe being close behind. Japan will eventually have plenty once the user base is larger elsewhere.

Is it not also currently quite a bit cheaper in Japan than it is in Europe for various reasons or am I imagining that?

@Tarvaax The lifestyle in the US really supports short periods of handheld gaming as well. Unsurprisingly it's the #2 (or did it move to #1?) market for the Switch.

There's another population that seems to have ridiculous amounts of time to do nothing but sit in front of the TV, but something tells me the majority of that audience is under 25.

For a little rebalancing of the European perspective versus the US, someone who lived a number of years in France once succinctly said that "Europeans work to live, while Americans live to work." It's a broad generalization but I think it's fairly accurate of both the US and Japanese system, where work IS your life, and your free time is a few minutes here and there you can steal for yourself between managing work for work and work for managing home. Switch works beautifully in these two countries.