Doing things for press coverage in order to get an increase in future sales is a great idea for a startup with limited marketing funds, but Nintendo aren't exactly in that position. The fact is Nintendo failed to supply a sufficient amount of their product, and that has created a demand in a secondary market. All of the profit generated in that secondary market would have gone to Nintendo if they'd managed their supply properly.

Suppose they contract with the manufacturer to set up 10 production lines to meet initial demand, what happens when demand drops in the New a Year and 'everyon' forgets these exist? They'll have to decommission most of the lines, which also has a cost. Also if they over-supply the initial surge of demand even a little, they could be stuck with months worth of tail end sales. Then what do they do? Decommission all the lines for that time? They'll have to pay for warehousing the product as well. There are a lot of factors to consider, it's not just a matter of magicing up however many units are needed at any given time.

This customer exploitation pattern is so common there should be an acronym for it.