>>712525579
>How do console shortages even happen?
The manufacturer doesn't produce enough to meet the demand. Scarcity like this also encourages scalping, which further exacerbates the scarcity. Often the manufacturer either underestimates the demand or has supply chain issues for mass production, or are massive retards that don't activate safeguards for scalping, ensuring consumers can't purchase the consoles at MSRP.
>Why not just raise the price until the market reaches equilibrium?
Because that reduces the demand. A reduced supply forces suppliers to increase prices to make the same profits, but increased prices also tend to reduce demand. Scalpers get around this by monopolizing the supply, forcing consumers to accept the artificially-increased price to get a console at all.
Here Nintendo both produced enough consoles to meet the demand and provided multiple ways for consumers to guarantee a purchase at MSRP on launch day and in the weeks after, discouraging scalping from increasing the price to any given degree. I've got several friends that want Switch 2s, but don't have the spare money to purchase one yet and are saving up. They'll be able to get one when they've saved up, since there's enough produced to meet that supply.
This is how all console releases SHOULD look.
