Nintendo was scrambling to meet demand for the Switch when it launched in March (and they still are). Normally they ship consoles by sea from China where they are manufactured, but some units were shipped by air to meet the demand faster.
This is according to a Nintendo spokesperson, who told the Wall Street Journal that “We carried some of the Switches by plane in March to serve our customers more promptly.”
And that’s a lot more expensive, as Ace Research Institute analyst Hideki Yasuda points out. He says that it can cost Nintendo up to $45 per console when shipped by air from China.
Which means Nintendo probably didn’t make any profit on those consoles it shipped via air.
See also: These are the top 30 best selling Nintendo games of 2016
Now the company is back to shipping all of its consoles via sea. It takes longer, but is far, far cheaper.
Nintendo originally intended to make 2 million consoles for the first month, but ended up making more than 2.7 million, all which sold out.
