Nintendo has benefitted from the lockdown, as people all over the world have looked to the Nintendo Switch to help keep them occupied during prolonged periods of isolation. Nintendo has also shot itself in the foot by not letting people buy the highly-sought-after Ring-Fit Adventure on the eShop.
The COVID-19 situation led to the release of several high-profile games being thrown into chaos, as was the case with Final Fantasy VII Remake and Resident Evil 3. These issues weren't a problem for people who purchased these games digitally, as those launches happened without incident and people could pre-load the titles days in advance, in order to make sure that they were ready to play on release day. The game that benefitted from this was Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which is currently the 6th best-selling game on the Switch, despite only being out for a few months. The people who wanted to go on a trip with Tom Nook could do so at any time by buying the game on the eShop, which meant that they could avoid dealing with the overloaded postal service.
There is another highly-sought-after game that Nintendo fans have been struggling to acquire, as it's not on the Nintendo eShop. There have been problems with finding Ring-Fit Adventure since before lockdown began, but the self-isolation period caused demand to skyrocket, and Nintendo has no one to blame for stock shortages than itself.
Nintendo had a history of being conservative with the initial stock of games that don't belong to major franchises, but there shouldn't have been concerns regarding Ring-Fit Adventure, as it's the spiritual successor to the Wii Fit series. Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus are the eighth best-selling video games of all time, beating out the likes of Pac-Man, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and the entire second generation of Pokémon games. The reason why Nintendo underestimated the demand for Ring-Fit Adventure has more to do with the peripherals that are required to play it (the Ring-Con/Leg Strap), as they wanted to see how popular the game was without needing to produce too many of these units. Ring-Fit Adventure requires the use of the Ring-Con and Leg Strap in order to function, which is why Nintendo made the decision to not put the game on the eShop.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa apologized for the shortage of Ring-Fit Adventure games back in February, and the situation was about to get a whole lot worse. Demand for the game skyrocketed when the self-isolation period began, as gyms closed around the world and people looked for more exciting ways to exercise than running around the streets near their apartment. As such, the price for Ring-Fit Adventure was inflated by scalpers on the second-hand market, and the game now sells for hundreds of dollars. It's possible to sign up for stock alerts on websites for when they do manage to get Ring-Fit Adventure back in stock, but these are also quickly gobbled up by scalpers and put on eBay.
So, why did Nintendo choose not to put Ring-Fit Adventure on the eShop? It's possible to buy replacement Ring-Cons/Leg Straps on the Nintendo Store without the game. Surely it would have made sense to release a digital version and sell the Ring-Con/Leg Straps as separate accessories? It's possible that Nintendo doesn't want customers buying accessories produced by third-party companies... but that's already happening. There are already companies in China that are producing Ring-Cons/Leg Straps, all of which can be purchased on eBay. This is a far more convenient option for replacing broken Ring-Fit Adventure accessories than going to Nintendo, especially as these are facing stock shortages as well. Nintendo would have profited far more from selling digital versions of Ring-Fit Adventure with a big disclaimer about the Ring-Con/Leg Strap on the store page and letting people acquire their own accessories through third-party sellers than people not being able to buy the game at all due to stock shortages or not being willing to pay scalpers.
Ring-Fit Adventure is an excellent title that makes exercise fun and it's a shame that people all over the world haven't been able to enjoy it when it would help so many people. Even with stock shortages, Ring-Fit Adventure is one of the best-selling games in the UK charts over the past few weeks, and it could have done so much more if Nintendo had been willing to put it on the eShop and embrace third-party accessory developers, rather than letting scalpers take advantage of people.
Ring-Fit Adventure is available now for Nintendo Switch.