Nintendo - Switch shortages aren't intentional, miscommunication on NES Classic, 3DS support, fan-games & more

Coming from an ArsTechnica interview with Nintendo Senior Director of Corporate Communications Charlie Scibetta...

On Switch shortage

"It's definitely not intentional in terms of shorting the market. We're making it as fast as we can. We want to get as many units out as we can to support all the software that's coming out right now... our job really is to get it out as quick as we can, especially for this holiday because we want to have units on shelves to support Super Mario Odyssey.

We anticipated there was going to be demand for it, but the demand has been even higher than we though. We had a good quantity for launch, we sold 2.7 million worldwide in that first month, said we're going to have 10 million [more] by the end of the fiscal year... Unfortunately, we're in a situation right now where as quick as it's going into retail outlets it's being snapped up. It's a good problem to have, but we're working very hard to try and meet demand."

On NES Classic Edition being hard to find

"I think we could have done a better job communicating that was gonna be a limited run. It was supposed to be for that holiday. We extended it actually because demand was so much, then we stopped producing it."

On continuing 3DS support

"We've still got a long runway there for the 3DS in our mind... We didn't focus on it necessarily in our booth or the Nintendo Spotlight, but we are talking about it here at the show. Metroid: Samus Returns is one that got a lot of reaction. As long as we keep making games that will power that system, we think it has a good shelf life."

On Nintendo's approach to fan-games

"For a company like Nintendo, our IP is our business. We have to be pretty strict in terms of how we see that come to life. A lot of that is just we want to see it done the right way, and we think our developers are the ones that can bring it to life the right way. ...we certainly are open to suggestions and their ideas in terms of where they want to see the franchise go or ideas they have, but when it comes to development, that's really done in-house."