Nintendo said that they won't have another NES-Mini situation with the Switch, but I'm pretty sure it's inevitable that Nintendo's only making the bare minimum necessary until Holiday 2017 where things heat up. In this case it will probably be an effective marketing strategy since there's no games at launch, and better to make it seem like the Switch is a rare thing rather than having them rot on shelves until Mario's out.

I don't think a lot of people know this, yet.

Guess we'll know in a few days.

you're making quite a few assumptions here. that said, being nintendo i'm erring on caution and *might* line up for one at a local retailer (was dumb and chickened out on preording one until it was too late)

i've always got a contingency plan of giving nintendo even more money getting zelda on the wii u until the switch becomes more readily available.

@ripelivejam: I was thinking about trading in my Xbox since i have a decent PC and all their games will be on the windows store, but hearing reports of the joycon desync I might wait until a future revision/holiday so I'll have 2 games Im interested in playing

@dystopiax: desync looks like it might be fixed by a patch. i'm probably going to mostly play it as a handheld anyway so it's nbd to me.

now back to trying to beat twilight princess in the next 5 days cause reasons.

I mean you can still pre-order them in quite a lot of locations, in the UK at least, this leads me to believe they have a decent level of stock at launch.

I put in a preorder yesterday in a physical store (those still exist?) for the same reason. My Xbox was a very poor investment. I hope the Switch doesn't follow suit.

I pre ordered mine yesterday from shopto in the UK and i emailed to make sure that i will get it on release day. They emailed back today and say i will have it on friday. Looking online there seems to be a lot of places still with pre orders available for release except the red/blue one.

I got the impression that this thing was in short supply when they ran out of fucking pre-orders the first day they announced it in the US

@colourful_hippie: it might be different in the US? But I didn't put a pre-order in until 2 weeks ago and got the neon blue and red.

Yeah, it definitely seems a lot more supply constrained in the US. I got a pre-order for a neon red and blue Switch yesterday in the UK!

I just checked the store pages of four Finnish retailers and they all had units available to pre-order.

maybe i should import at this rate, considering they're region free and all.

@ripelivejam: Unless you camp out at midnight releases at gamestops or other stores when they first open I'd be surprised if you get a Switch launch day unless you live in a rural area. If you're patient I'd recommend waiting a week or two to see how long they take to restock otherwise import one

The whole argument that people make that "Nintendo underestimates demand specifically to let their product seem artificially rare and thus valuable" doesn't make sense. It seems to be an example under the banner of "all publicity is good" because "scarcity begets publicity" but this misses the point of the banner. "all publicity is good" only works when you want awareness to inspire an action in a greater population of people. For celebrities it's useful almost all the time since they always have products out or coming out (e.g. branded items, TV shows, films, records etc..) to lead the awareness towards. For a physical item, especially a launch, of a business the publicity only works if they newly-aware masses can buy the product. Scarcity removes this outcome, meaning Nintendo gain nothing. There's only a short window between the general public learning of something and wanted to buy it for Nintendo to capitalise on - meaning this strategy can actually lose you sales (i.e. that NES Mini).

Nintendo estimates demand and then produces product to meet. They don't create a surplus because they are a very cautious conservative company (which is why they still have a lot of funds despite heavy recent losses). Thus, when they do under-estimate, it's an accident that they scramble to meet. Some companies take the risk of over-producing and hoping to sell fairly quickly (rather than keep lots of stock in a warehouse somewhere), while Nintendo takes the risk of not having extra product to capitalise on a runaway success (but their ultimate loss for a failure is low).

For the Switch, preliminary info from pre-ordering availability suggests they have over-estimated the stock required for the UK, while under-estimating the stock required in the US. There isn't some secret scarcity-based strategy going on; estimating demand is just difficult.

As many people have said before me, everything about the Switch is pointing to a soft launch. Launching at $299 during a shopping low season, with a very limited lineup of games (from third parties in particular) and with an unusually short marketing period. I don't think they're going to go for artificial scarcity per se, but I think it'll be hard to find a Switch in the first half of the year. They'll see how the core audience adopts the system, and then coming into the fall, they'll do whatever adjustments they need to do (whether it's price, bundled software etc.) and go for a full-on marketing blitz leading up to the holidays.

I think the fact their online service isn't in place until later this year is a telltale sign that they're launching Switch a bit earlier than they had intended to.

Game in the UK seem to be cancelling pre-order's of the Switch. They cancelled mine saying there was insufficient funds available, which wasn't true, they failed my banks anti-fraud checks, and when I tried to get it sorted, they said I'd have to wait until phase 3 because they don't have enough stock.

That sucks, just had a quick look and it appears Amazon are out of stock as well.

But it looks like Argos are still accepting orders http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6817053?rec=webRespPDP:6776967:alt:CWVTPUBOOT:6817053

@yesiamaduck: Yeah, I managed to snag one from Amazon before they went out of stock on the Grey, when they were out of stock on the Neon. Looks like They're out of stock on the Grey now, but they now have the Neon available. I get a feeling this launch is going to get a bit messy in some places, as I've had 3 emails from Game in the last hour, the first confirming my cancelled order, the second saying I couldn't get a re-order, and just had a third saying that I've been previously misinformed and that they in fact could replace my order, in response to me saying I'd have to get a console elsewhere.

I am in Massachusetts, there are no Switch preorders available at any retailers I've checked here, and the big ticket stores, I've been told, are getting either none, or "very few" (no numbers) for first come first serve. A couple GameStop stores I've talked to are opening at midnight and have 1 or 2 that aren't claimed by preorder. I think launch day we'll actually find out how hard it is to find. I'm going on a good ol' console hunt early but can't do it all day!!

@symbyosys: I'd recommend calling the store the evening before and talking to a manager, I've usually had good luck securing systems that way without preorders.

Local walmart here is getting 60 total. Live in a smaller city of 45,000ish .... In comparison, same wal-mart got 8 Wii systems and I worked at Babbages during Wii launch, we got 10 Wii's .... There will be an initial shortage as there always is at console launches, but nothing like the Wii.

I'm gonna wait a week to see if Nintendo address the joy con disconnect issue, I'm worried it's a hardware flaw similar to the iPhone 4's antenna. I think I'll have no problem finding the neon Switch.

Check how many your walmart has, an hour away for me for example one is getting 100 total between both Grey/Neon

GREY: http://brickseek.com/walmart-inventory-checker?sku=55449983

http://brickseek.com/walmart-inventory-checker/

NEON:

http://brickseek.com/walmart-inventory-checker?sku=55449981

It's funny because I found a deal to get $30 off BOTW so now I... I have a Switch preorder.

Well shit.

Damn I wish I preordered this, I'll have to double check and hope my Gamestop has extras but I doubt they will. The closest Walmarts to me are getting 40-80 Switches and the closest Walmart is almost an hour away, I don't want to have to drive that far in vain.

That's a bummer. I preordered in store on Sunday with GAME and, while they only had Neon available, I was able to get a Phase 2 one that they today confirmed I could pick up at the midnight launch. I've only paid a £20 deposit though, so no need to worry about it getting cancelled.

When I spoke to them they asked specifically if I had ordered Neon when I asked if it'd be in stock, I guess they're completely out of Grey now. Seems like you could walk in at midnight and still get a Neon near me though.

@bollard:

This is from ShopTo, just ordered 10 minutes ago. The Neon was out of stock until the last hour, I guess someone cancelled!

Now I'm gonna be pissed if my copy of Zelda & case don't turn up on Friday.

@wynnduffy: Nice! Enjoy :)

@bollard: I would of been less annoyed, but I'd pre-ordered the minute they were available on Game's site, because it was going to be a Birthday present, only for them to cancel and blame me when I was being told by my bank it was their end that wasn't right. I don't live near anywhere that will be selling them either, but luckily I managed to get one on Amazon.

One of my local stores just sent me a reminder that the Switch is launching tomorrow and they still have the grey ones available. I'm very interested to see and hear how the launch goes.

Well just checked my local Walmart on brickseek and it says they have 3. THREE. Guess I'll just wait til there's more than just Zelda available

I'm just gonna walk into a store and see what happens. No big deal if they're sold out. Far more broke than expected to be at this time... May be for the best for me to wait, unfortunately.

I get why places like Best Buy want people to come to their store for the launch, but why can't Amazon just sell unlimited preorders and tell us we'll get it when we get it.

Amazon Canada is having a midnight launch event, which is about the dumbest thing I can think of.

because "we'll get it when we get it" is a completely unknown quantity. could be a week or two, could be months. something like that will potentially make a LOT of people angry.

@ripelivejam: Better than having to check if there's stock anywhere every day. They also do it for other things they don't have in stock.

I ordered the Rock Band Rivals kit when it was 50% off and it tooks months to get here.

yeah, if hoofing it to retail doesn't work out i wouldn't mind that, but i would know what i'm getting into. would be confusing i assume for your rando customer, probably even if they state it VERY clearly.

@sfw44: odd I ordered it on Monday and it's being delivered tomorrow from game. All confirmed.

I assume its because its got a pre-order label on it and Amazon has a pretty strict definition of what a pre-order is. It'll turn up on launch day, we guarantee it, don't think they'd want to muddy that policy as it entices customers to pre-order from themselves in confidence.

At least in Canada, they don't guarantee it. Switch stuff is getting shipped Monday.

My Neon Switch, case, screen film and Zelda have all been shipped to arrive tomorrow.

It's happening!! Too bad I don't get home until 6pm, so by the time I set up my Switch the GB coverage will start lol.

Exactly this (seriously down to the time and order (no screen film)! BUT U CAN PLAY THE SWITCH IN HANDHELD MODE WHILST YOU HAVE GIANTBOMB ON TELE!

Oh, really? THAT SUCKS!

Thought the whole point of pre-ordering was securing an item on launch

In Canada, we're just happy they thought about us. It's a big, empty place, frankly. Not that easy to ship fast.

Also Switch prices really gut punch you here. Zelda is like 90-100 after taxes in many places..

The scalper market prices for Switches aren't as high as I thought it would be. I see a buy it now option on eBay of $475 plus $15 shipping for Switch and Zelda

Got mine today. I love it!

I work for a big box retailer and I can confirm roll out has been pretty slow. We had 14 on launch and 8 a few days ago and they sold instantly

@btrdeadthanred: sounds like it's sitting between the wii and wii u at this rate (maybe closer to the former)

I've been checking all local stores and online everyday since launch and the situation only seems to be getting worse. Gamestop, for a time, had nothing available online and now they only have the most expensive bundle available to ship by April 16th. As of yesterday WalMart sellers have done the same thing. Amazon is a mess of people reselling them at higher than retail. All other local retail stores just have none available within 100 miles of my location. I wasn't too interested in the Switch up front, but seeing all the talk around what Breath of the Wild actually is got me excited in a way I've never been for any Zelda game, or new Nintendo hardware since the GBA for that matter. Chances are if nothing nearby or online pops up by the time Persona 5 is out I'll probably never buy a Switch.

Not sure if the OP is right, but if Nintendo plans to keep limited units till holiday I don't know if the library of games by that time will be able to compete for attention as well as the PS4, Xbox One, or heck even the 3ds if you can still by a new one in 8 months. I can certainly see this being the case if concerns about the left joycon or the screen persist for an extended period of time post launch.

'Fastest selling' console in Nintendo's history. They know what they're doing. If they sell through their stock, they've got a handle on their revenue and can then probably roll out similar stock sizes until it starts dropping off. Those that want one will still want one down the line.