TECHNOLOGY Bloomberg Businessweek April 20, 2020
19
THEBOTTOMLINE It seemscutelittlepastelanimalsona
tropicalislandarejustwhattheworldneedednow.Nintendo’s
challengeis keepingupwithdemand.
accidentallylandedit rightinthemiddleofwide-
spreadlockdownsandshelter-at-homeordersas
theworldgrappledtoreininthespreadofthe
novelcoronavirus.Formany,theexperienceofthe
pandemicandtheescapismthegamehasprovided
willbeindeliblylinked.“Noothergameshavesuch
anoverwhelmingsalesmomentum,andit’sclear
thefranchiseis gettinga lotofnewfansduetothe
world’sfightagainstcoronavirus,”saysFamitsu’s
headofresearch,MitsunobuUwatoko.“Nintendo
ouldhavesoldmoreSwitchunitsif it
hadenoughinventory.”
Nowthreeyearsold,theSwitch
consoleis sellingfasterthanwhenit
unched,causinglogisticalheadaches
orNintendo.MostSwitchproductionin
thepastcoupleofmonthshascomefrom
Vietnam,withNintendo’sproductionpartner
inChina,HonHaiPrecisionIndustryCo.,priori-
tizingAppleInc.iPhoneswhilerestartingfactories
aftercoronavirusshutdowns.A Nintendospokes-
mansaysChina’sproductioncapacityremains
“limited.”Thecompanyhadtolimitdomesticship-
mentstofulfillexistingpreordersinthesecond
weekofApril.TheSwitchis soldoutatmajorretail-
ersinJapan,theU.S.,andmanyEuropeancoun-
tries. New Horizons reportedly has been removed
for sale in China after some players in Hong Kong
used the game to stagepro-democracy protests.
For the lucky oneswho’vemanagedtoget
their hands on the device,lifeinNewHorizons
is pretty good, if not with
lenges. Masahiro Sekiguc
38-year-old product plan
at a startup in Tokyo,say
he decided to try Anim
Crossing for the first time
company asked employ
from home. He now spen
hours in the game every
his 6-year-old daughter,
design furniture and cloth
“SomecolleaguesuseZoom’svideochatap
toplaythegametogether,andI havesetupa
dedicatedthreadinthecompanysocialnet-
worktoaskbasics,”Sekiguchisays.“Theytold
meI shouldhitrockswitha shoveltogetiron
stones,becauseit seemstheresourceis impor
antbutsupplyis limited.”—TakashiMochizuk
YukiFurukawa,andDebbyWu
Lee Dong-hoon couldn’t take any more of the
bloody masks. This was January, early in the
coronavirus’s sweep through South Korea, and mis-
information, including rumors about contaminated
businessesand phony photos of masks supposedly
id-19 victims, seemed to be everywhere on
dia. The Korea Centers for Disease Control
vention was releasing detailed situation
butthey were much tougher to decipher
cethan a scary Facebook post. So Lee, an
ring student at Kyung Hee University in
reated a website he hoped could act as a
weight.
in a day the self-taught coder set up
ap.site, which tracked the spread of infec-
henext day 2.4 million people visited after
Citizen Coders
Are Stepping Up
○ White-hat hackers, web developers, and students are taking the
initiative to index coronavirus cases and build day-to-day tools
Lockdown Pickup
Nintendostockprice
Nintendo
Switchrelease
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SwitchLite
release
MarioKart 8
Deluxerelease
SuperSmashBros.
Ultimate release
AnimalCrossing:
NewHorizons
release
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35 k
20 k
400k
200 k
0 k
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