In 2025 is not having enough consoles produced to meet need on purpose or accidental?

Somebody needs to seriously ponder the headline question.

Remember the Sony PS5 launch? The real winners at launch weren’t gamers like you and I, credit — discredit, really — the scalpers that gobbled up the consoles and then re-sold them at a premium. I refused to buy a scalped console and that led me to wait over a year since launch before I could buy one at retail price, direct from Sony.

Now, we’re learning that Nintendo won’t have enough consoles to fill preorders in Japan.

“We received an extremely large number of applications, approximately 2.2 million people in Japan alone,” Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa posted directly on X today. “However, this number far exceeds our expectations, and far exceeds the number of Nintendo Switch 2 consoles that can be delivered from the My Nintendo Store on June 5th. Therefore, unfortunately, we expect that a significant number of customers will not be selected when the winners are announced tomorrow, April 24th.” – Switch 2 Preorders Are Already Overwhelming Nintendo In Japan

Yes, the home country where they make the console we’re supposed to believe they can’t produce enough to meet demand there at launch of a second generation Switch console? This might be 100% true, I don’t know one way or another, but I’m finding the process of not being able to meet demand with supply production in 2025 disturbing.

It doesn’t seem to matter the company, but I think Nintendo by now should be able to meet demand, especially with a console that isn’t that creative or innovative (see: Wii U Deja Vu? Nintendo Switch 2 is coming June 5, 2025, are you buying at launch, later or never?).

This leads to the question at the top of this article, to the speculation about who is deciding how many consoles to produce for launch? What is the decision-making process? Are these companies trying to lowball customer FOMO, so there is an intentional dip in supply?

This might be completely false. That these companies just have the world’s worst game sales forcasers, so they’re basing launch production and inadequate numbers.