Nintendo Confirms Chip Shortages Have Impacted Switch Production

On Thursday, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo Switch has sold nearly 85 million units. The company shipped 28.83 million Switch units in the fiscal year ending in 2021 and that the company expects to ship 25.50 million in the current one, which ends on March 31, 2022. Should Nintendo accomplish that goal, the Switch will pass the Wii to become the best-selling Nintendo console of all time, and the 5th best-selling video game system, behind only the PS4, GameBoy, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation 2.

However, in a press conference following the publication of the company’s latest earnings, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed that the global semi-conductor shortage meant that the company was unable to produce as many units as it would like, and that there’s “an increasing sense of uncertainty” about how many units the company can produce.

“Due to the global shortage of semiconductor materials, we are not able to produce all the products we want to,” he said, according to Nikkei and reported by VGChronicle. “We are doing everything we can, but there is an increasing sense of uncertainty about production plans. Our earnings forecast is based on the assumption that we will be able to secure parts and materials, and if the situation changes, we would like to respond by revising it.”

Nintendo is not the only company that has been affected. Sony has confirmed the shortage is affecting PS5 production, and Microsoft has said the same about the Xbox Series X|S. Foxconn CEO Young Liu belives the shortage will continue until mid-2022 at the earliest.