well i remember the psp was hard to find in america for a while - not until july, but i remember working at gamestop and taking preorders for the second and possibly third shipments into april/may because it was a pretty hot-ticket item. 360 is an example of a system that wasn't that hot but was difficult to find during its launch more or less because of the holiday season. nintendo didn't have a problem with 3ds's demand, nor wii u, or even gamecube.
ds was sold out for the holiday in which it launched - especially the week and days before christmas. i think ps4 and xb1 were difficult to find later in december as well, but became easier to find in the new year. it generally seems that unless you have a bomb or a lower-tier seller like xbox or gamecube, systems generally are hard to find near launch thanks to the holidays. if you launch outside of the holidays, then it's up to the popularity of the platform to tell the story. in this case, the switch selling out at this time of the year puts it closer to psp and gba than it would vita or 3ds for example.