Okay lets game this out: You are a Nintendo employee given unlimited funds and authority to move Switch 2 production to the US. No new factories, that's going to take way too long, you need to work with existing American Contract Manufacturing capacity. How fast can you do it? 1/x - ThreadSky

mezentine.bsky.social • 9 days ago

Okay lets game this out: You are a Nintendo employee given unlimited funds and authority to move Switch 2 production to the US. No new factories, that's going to take way too long, you need to work with existing American Contract Manufacturing capacity. How fast can you do it?

1/x

Reposted from domino

Comments

redwoodgirl.bsky.social•7 days ago

And ALL of this is assuming that none of the hundreds of people involved in this project are affected by COVID, Long COVID, flu, bird flu, measles, pneumonia, or any of the other half-dozen pandemics that are about to kick off. Long COVID is turning the brains of 7-10% of our population to mush.

bwsnorth.bsky.social•8 days ago

I would love a guess of how many jobs that would be.
I think people underestimate how much automation would be wanted in a new, from 0, assembly line.

New factory jobs might not be what people think they are.

simon.farnz.org.uk•8 days ago

Just looking at a couple of US contract manufacturers, you'd be looking at 1,000 to 10,000 jobs, assuming all global Switch 2 production moves to the USA.

Less if the US plants just manufacture for the US market.

craggylotus.bsky.social•8 days ago

I'm given authority to move to the US but given that's a silly decision I choose not to.

pdelahanty.bsky.social•8 days ago

In the messed up mind of the Felon in Chief, he doesn’t want Nintendo coming over to make it here.
He wants an American company to make the “Patriot Switch” instead and have games like “Super Mike Bros.” and “The Legend of Zippy”.

danatheelf.bsky.social•7 days ago

Trump has never once thought about Nintendo or the Games Industry.
He doesn't want American replacements, he just wants to feel powerful and make people give him money and stroke his ego. He's a painfully simple manchild.

christopherquirk.bsky.social•8 days ago

📌

dumnbunny.bsky.social•8 days ago

📌

purble.bsky.social•8 days ago

If you did want to do it in new factories, presumably that adds 2-5 years to the timeline

smikes.bsky.social•8 days ago

And let’s zoom in on the assumptions:

1. Unlimited funds

Even if it’s a “bet-the-company” situation and the C suite meant it when they said that, both you and your partners are full of accounting controls that are there to prevent

Waste fraud and abuse

And they still cause friction

smikes.bsky.social•8 days ago

2. Unlimited authority

Never seen it. And it’s implausible, anyway. This is not a “CEO does it personally” thing; this is delegated to some senior, tech-savvy, business-savvy director under the big-shot VP

Every decision still needs to go down to levels for technical validation and up two levels

smikes.bsky.social•8 days ago

For finance and business authorization.

3. Top priority

In theory, one thing is your top priority and you work on that until it’s done. In theory, you can commandeer other teams, equipment, etc because you are working at the CEO’s direction, with full board support, and the VPs are all-in…

smikes.bsky.social•8 days ago

Except, this engineer is working on a safety-critical project with a regulatory deadline so you can’t have her.

The cloud team is at your disposal, except when there is a Camel-related outage that they have to babysit because that’s $10MM per day in revenue we aren’t getting.

smikes.bsky.social•8 days ago

Unfortunately, the RF person you were hoping to work with just had a death in the family so she had to go overseas, and her right-hand man just left on his first vacation in a year. He’s on a live-aboard scuba trip for 2 weeks, no way to contact.

Oh and let’s see some

4. Organizational Politics

smikes.bsky.social•8 days ago

Everyone with a pet project or an ax to grind can see that this thing has momentum. So naturally they need a moment- an hour- a day of your principal engineer’s time to explain why their pet project will make this so much faster/better/cheaper.

And it’s unwise to blow them off because ..

fozbaca.bsky.social•4 days ago

This thread is something anyone wanting to onshore manufacturing has to wrap their heads around. Now imagine every product company fighting for use of existing domestic manufacturing facilities. Now imagine how long it takes to build said facilities. Now imagine how long to train the people.

rabbitengineering.com•8 days ago

If I had unlimited funds I would just pay the tariffs for my customers and not disrupt my logistics and fab.

project-life.bsky.social•8 days ago

The point of making a product is to make money. If you pay the tariffs yourself, you don't make any money. So why would you make the product?

rabbitengineering.com•8 days ago

Unlike Sony and Microsoft who have many revenue streams, a new console for Nintendo is a huge bet, so they can’t aggressively go margin neutral with it, they must cover R&D at least so if it flips they have a path to another generation.

tvjames.bsky.social•5 days ago

Then lower the cost of the console, thus lowering the cost of the tariffs and make it up in software, services and subscriptions. Sony and Microsoft platforms evolve. Nintendo seems to have one revision in them and then they get bored and go off in a completely different direction.

rabbitengineering.com•5 days ago

If Nintendo were not publicly traded that could work. Big gamble because you need to run in the red for several quarters before there are enough games to make up the difference. You are really going to struggle to get the board and shareholders to agree to that, they want returns quarter by quarter.

tvjames.bsky.social•5 days ago

Gemini (for as much as that's worth) suggests that generally the Tokyo Stock Exchange isn't as fixated on quarterly results as our exchanges here. (Though admits it's moving in that direction slowly). But, I do take your point. Maybe evolving platforms would help there.

rabbitengineering.com•8 days ago

The product here is not the console, it’s the ecosystem: games, merch, dev licenses, etc. the console has the worst prospect of making profit as hardware margins are very low. So remove the barrier to entry into the ecosystem.

towndarling.bsky.social•8 days ago

gaming consoles are not made to sell you the console, they exist to sell you games. it is not uncommon for companies to be “loss-leaders” to get the damn system in the house so people can start buying games for it. at $450 the switch 2 was almost assuredly making about $50-100/unit, but (1/2)

towndarling.bsky.social•8 days ago

tariffs will cost about ~$75-150 per unit. this puts the system at probably around a $100 loss per, but this isn’t uncommon. the ps2, ps3, and xbox 360 were famously sold at massive losses (esp at first). the 3DS and Wii U were also sold at smaller losses. this isn’t an uncommon practice

towndarling.bsky.social•8 days ago

if anything, nintendo is in a good place to be able to do something like this, and if they find a way to get the tariffs to not impact them so bad (they could only export to the US from Malaysia which has a 24% tariff for example) i could see them getting out of this alright.

apophis426.bsky.social•8 days ago

this is the "block of dry ice robot" answer to the question

10/10 no notes

hayeselaw.com•8 days ago

Excellent post on why Trump’s idiotic tariffs are not going to onshore manufacturing to the US, with Nintendo as the test case. Rather, they will just increase consumer prices, wreck existing supply chains, and stifle investment without any meaningful return.

davidavid.bsky.social•8 days ago

One factory for the US and other factories for everyone else in the world. Then someone fellates Trump’s ego and he drops the tariffs so all that investment is for shit. Then he decides to raise them again because someone else made him sad.

This is no way to run a business.

brianeisley.bsky.social•8 days ago

When you have a dictator, absolutely EVERYTHING depends on the whims of the dictator. If the dictator is a spoiled, unpredictable child like this one, it becomes impossible to plan anything, which is bad for business.

nottslassuk.bsky.social•6 days ago

“No way to run a 🤬 club” Derek & Clive.
Trump really ought to go back to running casinos; at least then he’d only be losing his and Daddy’s money.
🇺🇸😢

johnnybesad.bsky.social•8 days ago

📌

gullmatic.bsky.social•8 days ago

day one. give me a job and salary. by the time i dont deliver ive already been paid and have another job lined up elsewhere based on the prestige of my failed position. just give me a chance.

tevor-the-third.bsky.social•8 days ago

Someone went to business school I see 🤣👍

gullmatic.bsky.social•8 days ago

no, ive just been alive too long.

mjpals.bsky.social•8 days ago

And this just covers the physical aspects of production! There's also a bunch of software running the production process that will need development, probably by outside contractors bc that's a very specialized job. Good luck finding companies with the capacity to do that at the speed you require.

mezentine.bsky.social•9 days ago

First you go scouting. You leverage your network to identify 8-12 promising partners in the US. Ideally you want someone who can do your PCBA electronic assembly and your injection molded plastic but that’s very rare in the US, so you’re realistically looking at at least two different vendors.

2/x

mezentine.bsky.social•9 days ago

You need hardware and manufacturing engineers to physically visit those factories. You can screen some with intro calls over Zoom, but once you narrow it down you need to meet people in person and inspect their facilities before you’re going to sign any kind of deal.

3/x

coralnerd.bsky.social•8 days ago

And you can’t because it’s not safe to travel to the US…

mezentine.bsky.social•9 days ago

This is two months minimum. Two months is actually absurdly fast but I’m assuming you just have a couple teams of people you’re flying around and putting up in hotels taking meetings nonstop. But it works, you find 1-3 partners you can work with and with the new tariffs the costs *somehow* work

4/x

mezentine.bsky.social•9 days ago

You already have the molds and dies built overseas, time to move them to the US and start production, right?

Wrong. Molds never leave the factory they were built in. First because it’s terrible business etiquette, really burns your old supplier. But also you wouldn’t want to for quality control 5/x

mezentine.bsky.social•9 days ago

Plastic injection molds aren’t just designed to swap in. It is in everyone’s best interest for engineers at the new factory, or at their trusted tooling partner, to take your *design files* and build new molds. They will understand more intimately what their machines are capable. 6/x

yolande.bsky.social•8 days ago

I’d say you don’t move them because you’re still working with your original partners to supply the rest of the world. I’ve worked with suppliers where we’ve moved tooling for various reasons.

mezentine.bsky.social•9 days ago

So your engineers and their engineers need to work together to make sure everyone is on the same page about the “design intent” of every part. Not just what does it look like, what is it supposed to DO?

One month minimum. Again that’s if the full time job of everyone involved is *just this*

7/x

conmoot.com•8 days ago

Loved this whole thread but would nit pick you here.

Business etiquette does not stop customers from moving paid for molds/tooling on normal situations.

In this situation of MOVE EVERYTHInG TO US would not decide on this one to be nice.

You stated the real reason of non capability though later

conmoot.com•8 days ago

In my industry (print), every customer asks to move tooling if possible.

Moat of the time we just can't because of in compatible machines.

They may leave it if they know they are going to have the old vendor still do some work but in your fun example that isn't true.

calicoday.bsky.social•8 days ago

📌 nintendo prod to us

eatenofftheweb.bsky.social•8 days ago

Approx. 13 minutes

babybusterbluth.bsky.social•8 days ago

📌

ornamentalmatt.bsky.social•8 days ago

The experts are immediately detained by ICE

thene.bsky.social•8 days ago

this is such a real factor though, a lot of experts are simply going to do anything to avoid crossing the US border right now

jm64.bsky.social•9 days ago

Excellent

j-cutter.bsky.social•8 days ago

Trying to rush through this process is a large reason why we got the Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death; that took an unreasonable amount of time for a lot of smart people to fix in production.

https://venturebeat.com/2008/09/05/xbox-360-defects-an-inside-history-of-microsofts-video-game-console-woes/view-all/

bengraven.bsky.social•9 days ago

You know, I've been thinking about this post since I saw it yesterday and only now am I also realizing: why the fuck Ohio? Genuine question, is Ohio leading the nation in manufacturing now? Because the midwest is perfect for manufacturing, coming from a guy raised in a rural factory city.

davidorlo.bsky.social•8 days ago

JD Vance is from Ohio and they’re still pissed about Lordstown shutting down and not getting new manufacturing and they really don’t want Ohio to flip blue, so they’re hoping the Buckeyes will fall for another empty promise, the same shell game Trump has played for decades with contractors.

legendaryjoeb.bsky.social•8 days ago

This is admittedly a long ass shot considering that we may never truly know the answer, but right now Intel is building a chip plant in Ohio so some association may have come from that operation.

heyitsthatdude.bsky.social•8 days ago

Ohio was supposed to have an Intel plant in the process of being built and captain combover sunk it when he killed the CHIPs act

bengraven.bsky.social•8 days ago

Okay, that makes 101% sense then. Thank you!

laminx.bsky.social•8 days ago

🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯

oldnumberseven.bsky.social•8 days ago

Well Wisconsin got that foxconn factory previous go round, so why not Ohio?

seattleduckfan.bsky.social•8 days ago

All the while none of this makes anything cheaper for the US or more competitive globally. Nor does it truly translate to more domestic jobs even if we had enough skilled labor to make it work. If America is going to do this (which we won't) it is a long-term play. With lots of carrots, no sticks.

masmedium.com•8 days ago

You'd also wouldn't do it because it'd be a waste of money given the likelihood of a sudden reverse of policy, either due to the stupidity of tarriffs becoming obvious, or someone assassinating the fuckwit (you bet some high up types in edgy capitalism won't be happy)

laminx.bsky.social•8 days ago

🎯

jwatte.bsky.social•8 days ago

So Nvidia has to re-spin their ship design to work with an Intel process?

Probably gonna take a couple of years. Assuming I can pay enough for that Intel capacity that they don't just want to keep making Xeons...

callawayoutlier.bsky.social•8 days ago

📌

joshuaotti.bsky.social•3 days ago

When I was asked, I said 5-10 years if we have to make the actually hard parts: the processors and screens.

If Intel can more or less already make the CPUs, might be closer to 3. Not sure how long it takes to retool a cpu design for a different foundry.