According to a printout from the company’s investor call covering the company’s fourth quarter, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has formally stated that the spread of COVID-19 has begun to delay Switch and game production due to a multiple of factors impacting the company at different levels.
First, there’s the matter of physical production. Furukawa stated that a pause in Chinese manufacturing in February delayed shipments of the Nintendo Switch intended for Japan, but that apparently was a “minor” interruption.
Furukawa expressed concern that the global spread of COVID-19 will now hit the full supply chain for Nintendo’s portable console. With the inability to acquire some parts essential to the Switch’s production, Nintendo is apparently not able to “produce the full quantity of units we actually want to produce.”
It does appear that this challenge won’t last long for Nintendo. “There are signs of gradual improvement, and so we anticipate that the impact of COVID-19 on production will subside to some degree by summer and that the volume we will be able to produce throughout the year will aligin with our sales forecast units for this fiscal year,” Furukawa stated.
Meanwhile, a shift to at-home game development may impact Nintendo’s timelines for shipping new titles. However, Furkawa said that for the moment, it’s sharing its financial projections with the idea that these games will launch on schedule.