Time:

According to Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé, the total global sell-in for Nintendo’s pint-sized version of its 1980s Nintendo Entertainment System is 2.3 million.

Astonishing sales figures. Why pull the plug?

“We had originally planned for this to be a product for last holiday,” Fils-Aimé told TIME. “We just didn’t anticipate how incredible the response would be. Once we saw that response, we added shipments and extended the product for as long as we could to meet more of that consumer demand.”

But Fils-Aime did suggest the reason why the company pulled the brakes on a system amidst unprecedented demand. “Even with that extraordinary level of performance, we understand that people are frustrated about not being able to find the system, and for that we really do apologize,” he said. “But from our perspective, it’s important to recognize where our future is and the key areas that we need to drive. We’ve got a lot going on right now and we don’t have unlimited resources.”

As I’ve speculated before, I do think we’ll see the NES Classic games re-emerge in a purchasable, downloadable version with better margins than the just cancelled NES Classic, all with close to zero cost of manufacturing, all of them playable on the Switch.