Possible, but Nintendo do not seem like the sort of company that needs to use direct marketing tactics to sell their products.

Doesn't need, but - if it leads to increase in sales or brand exposure (via increase of press covering the situation) - it may as well engage in such tactics anyway.

But the weird thing about the brand exposure is that before this sale, there was zero advertising - it was all word-of-mouth, without Reddit I wouldn't have even known this thing existed. Nintendo didn't do any advertising in Australia I saw, nothing on TV, at the shops or on buses like it happened with the regular consoles. I don't get it, and press coverage is still minimal outside of the circles that knew about this thing already (tech press).