Nintendo's Quarantine

Covid-19 has swept the world, disrupting businesses and pass-time alike. People are finding themselves stuck at home with nothing to do but work and try to fill empty time with some entertainment. So where do they go? They turn to video games.

Nintendo has always been extremely popular among a very wide variety of gamer since its founding in the late '80s. While the other two game console giants (Xbox and PlayStation) fight to gain supremacy with very little differences between the two and their games. Nintendo offers an easy to use, family-friendly, and simple gaming experience with games that are not only familiar to long time players like the Mario and Animal Crossing series but easy to learn and jump into with friends and family like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. This made them the perfect console to pass the time while families are stuck inside with nothing to do.

Customers from all around the globe would have already been more than happy to buy the already 3-year-old console with video game hits like Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, with the addition of a new installment to the already beloved Animal Crossing series, Animal Crossing New Horizons was released on March 20. This long time favorite among those that enjoy a more relaxed gaming experience offers players not only hours of entertainment slowly progressing through the game, but an avid and friendly community where you can make in-game friends with and show off your successes in the game to much praise. Mix the newly found hours of free time with the increasing desire to communicate with others and the game quickly found success. Millions of sales and over a month past its release players are still sharing their enjoyment of the game on sites like Instagram, Twitter, and even Reddit. With players even making entire profiles for their in-game characters.



Unfortunately, what would have been the perfect formula for never before seen sales and growth for the Nintendo's hallmark console has turned into a business's worst nightmare. Due to the global shutdown and consequently lack thereof of parts to make the Switch, Nintendo is experiencing not only record high sales but record-high loss of sales. Millions of people are taking to Twitter and other social media, complaining to Nintendo for their lack of foresight and preparedness. While Microsoft and Sony (the parent companies of Xbox and PlayStation) are having no troubles with stock and are happy to sell to the disappointed would be Nintendo customers who have waited tirelessly for 3 weeks, stores being sold out everywhere. This problem is not helped by scalpers and their bots constantly buying what little stock does trickle in. This is because the reselling value of new switches is at an even $550 per unit whereas the market value for the Switches in stores is $300. While a great hallmark for any company is its products being able to maintain a good resell value. Hopeful customers are being taken advantage of and exploited, perpetuating the overall growing unhappiness with Nintendo.

One way Nintendo has tried to approach this issue is by marketing its cheaper and less powerful Nintendo Switch Lite consoles. While carrying similar names these two consoles share only the similarity of looking alike from a distance. The Switch Lite lacks the original Switch's most prominent feature and where it got its name with the inability to switch from being a console played on the TV to being played anywhere as a hand-held tablet, the Lite is only hand-held. On top of this, it is also lacking the Switch's second most prominent feature which are its detachable controllers, Joy-Cons. While the lite can sync up with other Joy-Con's, it can not remove its own. This makes the smaller console a few inches away from being a copyright infringement of the PSP. Understandably, this does little to satisfy the growing customer disappointment as Nintendo has done little more to put their eases at rest besides trying to push cheaper, yes I said cheaper, console onto them. Nintendo has said little to nothing as to when their switches might restock and customers are starting to take the advertising of the Lite as an insult to injury, feeling as if their cries aren't being heard. Distributors and partners are feeling the heat as well as one Instagram ad from a coupon application about the Switch is full of comments complaining why advertise if they cant buy what they want.

Although Nintendo has some of the best marketing money can buy and a truly remarkable product to sell to a predominantly untapped customer base, they seem to have entirely missed the ball on this one as not only are their eager customers vying for the opportunity to pass their time in a way anyone can enjoy, but they are having to check in with retailers hour by the hour just for the opportunity to beat the bots and not have to pay a nearly 100% markup. This, on top of the fact that customers are taking the advertisement of the Lite as a deflecting of responsibility and not communicating with their customers properly, has created what was a great opportunity to complete failure never before seen in such size in the gaming industry.

Personally, I believe and I have seen that communication with the customer is the biggest driver of customer satisfaction. If I was head of marketing for Nintendo, I would take less of a look at the numbers and more of a look at the people. I would create a constant line of communication on the website that would allow customers to not only track shipments of Switches but as well as providing updates on the progress towards coming back into full production. In addition to this, I want to create a website design to prevent the event of bots as well as limit all purchases to 2 Switches per transaction. This would allow customers to safely and reasonably gain access to switches as well as show them that their issues are heard and Nintendo is actively trying their best to solve it. Allowing all retailers to profit from the sales at the proper gross margin and proportional to their previous in-store sales. Finally, I would do some sort of quarantine promotion to reinforce the image of Nintendo and the Switch of being a family-friendly and social company. My idea would be that since Nintendo charges an annual subscription fee to access their games online and play with others and friends from across the world. A service that Xbox and PlayStation also charge for. A way that Nintendo could really show they care about their customers as well as encourage the sense of community during these trying times is to discount their online access fee by 50% until the last country in the world comes out of lock-down, meaning that you could get the discount even if you are in an open country.