A Nikkei report last Aug 18 informs the public that multinational game console company Nintendo may be eyeing reducing its Switch packaging as a way to boost its transportation efficiency.
Nintendo Plans to Reduce Switch Box Size by 20%
Nintendo is reportedly planning to reduce the size of the current Nintendo Switch box by a matter of 20 percent. The game console company believes that this modification can potentially increase the amount of supply distributed to different parts of the world as smaller packaging can eventually improve their transportation efficiency.
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An improved distribution efficiency can augment the company's efforts to address the current sales dip they are experiencing. Nintendo is one of the tech companies affected by a shortage in semiconductors that was observed by several console companies midway through this year.
Hideki Yasuda, a top analyst from Toyo Securities, comments that this move from Nintendo is a competent way to solve the company's problem with declining Switch sales. Reducing the packaging size of the flagship product, Nintendo Switch, will increase loading capacity for transportation and can eventually cut the cost of the already expensive airmail shipping.
According to the same review, airmail is a lot more expensive than shipping by sea. Also, airmail shipping only takes about two weeks, and the latter takes a lot longer. Having to secure that more units of the product are transported because of smaller boxes saves the company a lot of its capital.
As of writing, Nintendo is yet to confirm when this change in packaging will be applied to their production. Also, it is very unlikely that this change would affect the pricing of their products in the near future.
Console Shortage Is Imminent Due to Upcoming Major Title Release
According to the same inquiry made by the Toyo Securities analyst, a console supply shortage might be experienced come September and November when Nintendo releases some of its major titles for this year.
In Japan, stores are starting to run out of supply as demand rise because of the summer vacation. Furthermore, console demand in the US might rise as November's Black Friday Sale nears.
This is to hope that Nintendo would make it out to answer for the growing demand for their products. This year is believed to be a great year for Nintendo titles as major titles like Splatoon 3, Nier: Automata, Persona 5, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and many more are still on their way.
A report from Siliconera tells us that the yearly sales of the Nintendo Switch have dropped in the past two quarters. Since its release in 2017, the console company has already sold a total of 111 million units.
Reports also show that the Switch records more than 100 million active users. That is a huge number of users that will not need to buy a new Switch product in the foreseeable future unless Nintendo surprised us with a Nintendo Switch 2, which they also canceled because of the same issues with component supplies and sales slumps.
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