Nintendo 3DS Shortages Likely in 2011

You may have heard recently that the Nintendo DS family of systems is the best selling device on the planet. Ever.  Nintendo is the most popular console maker by a landslide, and they recently announced that they will only be selling 4 million Nintendo 3DS systems at launch.

How do they know how many they will sell?  Well, that’s likely how many they will manufacture and each and every one of them will be sold each time stock is replenished in stores until finally every free breathing woman and child has one 6 years down the road.  That’s just how tendo rolls.

To put this in perspective Microsoft recently sold 8 million Kinects in 60 days.  An unproven, gimmick that was driven by pure marketing hype with one game that is worthwhile of wasting any time playing.  Then on the other hand you have the 3DS with a rock solid launch lineup.

A technology that is also brand new, from a company that is always ahead of the curve in the innovation department that likely has around 20 million people debating whether or not they are going to get a first run 3DS or not.  Shipping 4 million worldwide for launch won’t cause shortages, not at all.