Guess Nintendo is still trying to replenish all those consoles sold this year (due to pandemic and Animal Crossing). It's really sad that even though the facts point to this (ps4 pros and xbox one s/x are hard to come by as well), I still can't shake the feeling that Nintendo is once again manufacturing supply/demand, except now they have the pandemic as a convenient excuse.
Then again economics 101 tells us consistently failing to meet demand is not good for a company no matter how popular their product is. Maybe that doesn't apply to Amiibos, but certainly consoles.
Then why would Nintendo be doing this is it's not good for the company? You're not making any sense.
To be fair to BadWaluigi=Luigi, many have pointed the finger at Nintendo in the past for doing this - with the NES Classics, 2DS/3DS, numerous amibos, the Wii, and so on and so forth. And it's not an unsupported allegation. Nintendo's official responses to some of these so-called shortages are so laughably bad that it's almost as if their PR spokesperson was adding a not-so-subtle "wink, wink" at the end of each statement.
However, those shortages - as artificial as they were - had underlying economic reasons behind them. The NES classic shortages were likely to help the company drum up media coverage during the horrible demise of the Wii U. The odd 2DS/3DS disappearance from store shelves during the 2017 (and 2018) holidays were probably meant to drive customers towards the Switch (even though Nintendo insisted that the 2DS/3DS "pillar" was not being abandoned). And then there are the notorious shortages of the Wii and Wii U - both graphically dated consoles that Nintendo claimed they were having "trouble" finding the parts to make.
In this instance, however, I agree with RealCheapLikeaFoxOfficial. I don't see why Switch shortages would at all benefit Nintendo. The console is now in its 3rd year, and with PS5 and Xbox Series X around the corner, Nintendo needs to get as many of these machines into customers' hands as quickly as possible. The honeymoon launch period is well over, so creating hype through stringing supply isn't going to gain any favors. It's a business, after all, and although Switch sales numbers are solid at ~55M, that figure isn't actually as great as bloggers and podcasters lead folks to believe.
Nintendo's handheld and home console combined have put them at 250+M sold (Wii and DS family sales), and even during the Wii U, the combined sales of 3DS/2DS and Wii U put them at ~90M sold.
The Switch - for all the love it gets - isn't really going gangbusters. With Nintendo now only at one pillar instead of two, the combined number of 55M means their customer base is actually smaller, not larger, right now.
Anyways, all of this is to say that this go-around, it does look like supply chain problems were the issue for the Switch. The company needs to sell as many as possible. Let's hope that number keeps going up with the inevitable Switch 2.0 (or is that 3.0?).