Nintendo President admits to underestimating demand for NES Classic Edition

Have you purchased an NES Classic Edition yet? Nope? Me neither. And the chances of finding one before Christmas are getting slimmer by the day. Many have called out Nintendo for creating an artificial demand by deliberately understocking the product, but I’m willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt.

I mean, months of universally positive press, record-breaking traffic, and excitement across the globe certainly could have passed under the company’s nose for a whole three months. According to Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé in an interview with CNET, it legitimately did. The company simply overlooked the demand for the hot item.

Every day there’s more going into the retail channel. The overall level of demand is certainly greater than we anticipated, that’s why we’re suffering through the shortages out there in the marketplace.

He promises that production will continue until everyone has the games they want, and he also stresses that this release is an important part in Nintendo’s long-term strategy of reaching out to multiple generations.

We saw the NES Classic as an opportunity to engage with millennials, gen-Xers, boomers, people who had played those games back in the day, but life had gone by, and they had somewhat walked away from gaming.

It was a great way to re-engage them, and our belief is that by re-engaging them, it creates an opportunity for Super Mario Run, it creates an opportunity for our 3DS business, it creates an opportunity for Nintendo Switch, because all of a sudden they’re recognizing what they knew 20 or 25 years ago: they love Mario. They love Zelda. They love all of our classic IP, and they’re re-engaging with it right now.