San Francisco, Nov 6 (IANS): Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has revealed that the global chip shortage, which had already forced the company to downscale its expected sales for the much-loved Switch device, is also hindering hardware development.

Nintendo executive Ko Shiota said that the semiconductor situation is having some effect on hardware development, reports GizmoChina.

"We are looking at substituting components and tweaking designs to try and reduce the impact," said Shiota.

The chip shortage has affected various tech-reliant industries across the globe including the automobile, consumer electronics, including smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles, televisions, home appliances and more.

In a statement given to CNBC last month, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has speculated that the global chip shortage will likely linger for a lot longer.

He said that he expects the shortage to extend at least until 2023.

This announcement comes a day after the company President Shuntaro Furukawa stated that the chip shortage shows no sign of easing up, and it has forced the company to cut down on its annual sales forecast of the Nintendo Switch by 6 per cent.

Furukawa also revealed that the company is struggling to meet the increased demand in the year-end holiday shopping season as chip shortages interrupt production.

The gaming giant depends heavily on its console business, all the while deep-pocketed rivals such as Microsoft are expanding subscription and cloud gaming services.

Nintendo further stated that it "plans to continue to expand its business around the core concept of creating unique integrated hardware-software products".