This was obviously designed as a customer-friendly way to cut scalpers out of at least part of the initial supply chain. Scalping has been an incessant problem in console gaming due to supply shortages, and it makes everyone miserable except the scalpers. Valve provided a similar release strategy with the Deck as what Nintendo appears to be doing here, and it was extremely successful and welcome by the community.
Anybody talking about how much they like (or dislike) Nintendo's plan needs to compare it to the alternative which is "insane levels of scalping" and not some kind of mythical ideal zero-scalping world where supply precisely meets demand on day 1.
I ended up getting my PS5 directly from Sony almost two years after the release. It was still just not in stock whenever and wherever I occasionally checked.
