Last we heard, the NES Classic Edition had sold 1.5 million units through the end of December, not nearly enough to meet apparently healthy demand during the holiday season and beyond. Now that the company has officially discontinued the plug-and-play box, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime tells Time magazine it sold 2.3 million systems overall in just under six months.

For context, the Nintendo Switch sold more than that in less than a month, though direct comparison between a $60 nostalgia box and a newly introduced $300 hybrid console can be a bit difficult. In any case, long lines for the final shipments and high secondhand markups for existing systems suggest a lot of unfulfilled demand for the system still exists in the market.

The robust success of the NES Classic Edition really does seem to have caught Nintendo by surprise. "We had originally planned for this to be a product for last holiday," Fils-Aime 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."

Fils-Aime said something similar in a March interview with Gamespot, where he admitted to a "market disconnect" between the planned supplies and the apparent demand. That was driven by "more active gamer[s]" that flocked to the system in addition to the expected purchasers: "30-40 years old, who grew up playing NES as a kid, 10 years old or so but had stepped away from the gaming category."

Back in January, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima apologized for "the inconvenience caused by-product shortages" of the NES Classic, noting that "some parts require time to procure, but we are working to increase production." Fils-Aime followed up on that apology to Time, saying that "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."

"But from our perspective, it's important to recognize where our future is and the key areas that we need to drive," he continued. "We've got a lot going on right now and we don't have unlimited resources."

This is where Nintendo differs from a lot of other companies, we'd argue. When most firms stumble into a product that's unexpectedly popular, they struggle to hire more staff and procure more production resources, at least temporarily, to wring as much windfall profit as they can from the surprise success.

Then there's Nintendo, which simply cuts off production and claims that because its resources aren't "unlimited," it can't keep up with the extraordinary demand, even in the medium term.

Let's just hope that, if the rumors of an SNES Classic are true, Nintendo plans ahead for the expected demand a little better the next time around.