Why You Can't Find a Wii for Christmas

Nintendo is making Wii consoles at a record pace, some 1.8 million a month. Last week they sold 350,000 units. Yes, just last week. And yet, still, it's going to be almost impossible to find a Wii in a store this Christmas. Wired reports that the problem actually began back in August. Summer being the traditional 'dry' season in gaming usually leads to hardware surpluses, but not with Nintendo's console. The result is a holiday season that Nintendo essentially couldn't prepare for. "Demand for Wii is so high, says analyst Michael Pachter, because of all the different types of consumers competing for the units ... it's not just kids who crave Wii. [It's] an especially big hit at retirement homes ... Hard-core gamers, who initially spurned the Wii's lower graphic power compared to the Xbox and PlayStation 3, have changed their tune on the console, thanks to brilliant software like the first-person shooter Metroid Prime 3. And eBay scalpers? They really want Wii." In fact, the only reliable way to get your hands on a Wii is to go that most dubious of routes. Ebay Wii sales are very brisk indeed this week.

The math?

[halcyon1234]

350,000 sold x 4 (weeks per month) = 1.4million sold per month

They make 1.8 million a month.

If they're making more than they're selling, why is it so hard to find a console?

Re:The math?

[MagusZeal]

I'd assume that's worldwide production and the sales figure is US.

Re:The math?

[TheThiefMaster]

I'd assume that's worldwide production and the sales figure is US.

From one of the article links:

Nintendo's 350,000 Wii systems represent the highest one-week U.S. sales total outside of its launch week one year ago.

So yes, that's US sales.
From another article link:

We're at a rate now worldwide of about 1.8 million Wiis produced every month

So yes, that worldwide production.

In fact:

About 40 percent of Wii sales have been in America

So the US only gets 720,000/month, so the 350,000 sold was two weeks' worth, sold in one week (presumably followed by a week of nearly no sales until the next deliveries). As a rough estimate, that means that Nintendo's Wii production is about half what the demand is. And because of this:

It takes about five months for us to increase the actual monthly rate of production

...it's not going to get any better before Christmas.

GUARENTEED WAY... NOT EBAY TO GET ONE

[hador_nyc]

In NYC, and I'll bet this is true in LA, there is a Nintendo World store. They sell 300 Wiis every day to the first 300 people in line. I got one for myself last year this way, and one for my nephews; they're old enough this year to ask for one. The catch, you have to get in line early; 2 hours and rising; even though the store opens at 9am.

This is the only way I know of. I hope this helps.

By the way, the Nintendo World store in Manhattan is in Rockefeller Center.

Re:GUARENTEED WAY... NOT EBAY TO GET ONE

[Autumnmist]

There is only one Nintendo World store in the entire US. Thank your lucky star you live in the NYC metro area.

Re:

[bewmIES]

Last week was an outlier -- Black Friday here in the US.

Re:

[plague3106]

Black Friday is a myth. The busiest shopping day is Christmas Eve.

Re:

[ByOhTek]

A couple people I know in retail disagree with you.

The top three days seem to be:

1) Day after Christmas (all the sales, money and gift cards)
2) Black Friday
3) Christmas Eve

#3 usually comes in second place, with #1 or #3 coming in first, and the other second, depending on the store.

Re:The math?

[plague3106]

Maybe you should check this [snopes.com] out.

Anecdote isn't evidence, and your friends in retail don't know what they are talking about.

Re:

[achilles777033]

'black friday' is supposed to be the biggest 'shopping' day of the year, not 'spending' day.
from my limited experience in retail (3 years, then i ran away to college), the day after thanksgiving is about the worst, if not THE worst day to work. the customers don't necessarily spend more, but they expect these fabulous deals and pitch a fit if they don't find them, (and often leave, if you can't deliver), and are generally annoying all day long.
the weekend before Xmas is the day that things aren't on sale, c

Re:

[plague3106]

If you're not spending, you're not shopping. You're just walking around looking at things.

The red-to-black has always been the theory explaining why its called Black Friday. I don't think I've ever heard anyone not say before. Yes, anectode I know, but when every news channel in every city I've ever been in explains it the same way... well.

Anyway like I said, if you're not spending, you're not shopping. You're walking around. My wife and I do this alot (not this time of year though); we often walk thro

Re:

[nuzak]

> The red-to-black has always been the theory explaining why its called Black Friday.

Possibly the most dubious backformation (i.e. "made up shit") I've ever heard. It's called Black Friday because it's a bad day to be in the trenches in retail.

Re:

[Lemmy Caution]

The "busiest shopping day" is not a "per store" statistic. I'm sure that at the bikini store, it's probably around Memorial Day. That's irrelevant, particularly at the scale that this discussion is about.

Please, please, please: learn to be wary of anecdotal reasoning.

Re:The math?

[omeomi]

The "busiest shopping day" is not a "per store" statistic. I'm sure that at the bikini store, it's probably around Memorial Day. That's irrelevant, particularly at the scale that this discussion is about. Please, please, please: learn to be wary of anecdotal reasoning.

But my friend, the bikini store owner, says....

Re:

[ByOhTek]

Please, please, please: learn to be wary of overgeneralization.

The Wii isn't sold in every type of store in existence (ex: grocery, automotive), and thus, using a general statistic that covers every store is at least as invalid. The people who I talked to (and considered) at least worked at stores that would sell video game consoles.

So, we have right demographic, and judgments based on numbers, vs. right demographic offset by wrong demographic, based on numbers.

Both conclusions have their flawed points. In

Re:

[plague3106]

Ahh, sorry that you meantion black friday as it relates to ONE STORE. Seems kind of pointless in regards to a story about the Wii, doesn't it?

Re:

[ByOhTek]

Actually, I was more referring to store categories than one store.

Typically a trend like that should follow with a type of store, rather than a specific store.

Ex: The busies day of the year for car-parts stores will be different than clothing retailers, which will differ from electronics stores, which will differ from food stores, etc. etc. etc.

My coworker's chain was a general department store (I think - he's not here today, so I can't ask him).

Regardless, it's not pointless because: Not all types of store

Re:

[zarthrag]

There wasn't a whole lot of stores with a wii on the shelf *at all* on black friday. For Nintendo, every friday is "black friday". - Though I've had a few opportunities to buy another one these past few months - if I were thinking, I would have bought a few to scalp in a parking lot on black friday - that would have worked out great!

Re:

[Corporate Drone]

If they're making more than they're selling, why is it so hard to find a console?

Check your units of measure. They're making 1.4 million a month, but they sold 350K last week.

Assuming that the two figures are representative, then you have a point. Otherwise, you're comparing apples and oranges (or, more to the point, the author handing you apples and oranges, and either not realizing it or not caring...).

Re:

[ack154]

The 350k was just for the US, just for last week with Black Friday.

They normally average 500k+ per month in the US. But the 1.8m per month is split between the US, UK/Europe and Japan. So those three together add up to the 1.8m.

Re:

[CastrTroy]

It's a distribution problem. I live in Ottawa Canada. I could go downtown and buy 5 today if I wanted to, but I already have one, and I'm too lazy to sell them on eBay. There's a lot of places they can't be found but there's a lot of places they can easily be found. However, the distribution problem isn't the easiest one to solve, especially when shops want to have them on the shelves. It could work if they were ordered by demand, from a single source, but things don't work that way. They are manufact

Re:

[Brickwall]

Maybe Ottawa is some weird hole in the universe where nothing can ever leave,

Yes, the worst ten years of my life were the four years I spent in Ottawa. (apologies to Mark Twain)

Re:

[king-manic]

It's so hard to find one because so many people want one, they're a reasonable price (compared to the current generation of consoles), they're fun for the family, and they have less reclusive geek stigma attached to them compared to the PS3 or XBox 360.

I'd say PC's have the reclusive geek stigma. 360's have tourettes fratboy stigma, and PS3 has sticker shock.

Re:

[sethstorm]

It's so hard to find one because so many people want one, they're a reasonable price

For values of reasonable only accepted by economists and scalpers.

Re:

[KDR_11k]

Increasing production beyond the current point would require setting up new assembly lines. That's a big investment, especially if you have to worry about sales going down soon (the Wii is already being made at the highest rate a console was made at, going further is risky).

Dear the rest of the world...

[minginqunt]

Welcome to last year.

Trust me, I'll be able to find a Wii come Christmas Morning. It'll be exactly where I put it a year ago.

Re:Dear the rest of the world...

[Blakey Rat]

Wow, I've never seen so much smug in a single post outside of a Prius owner's forum. Does it hurt?

Smug Humor (Re:Dear the rest of the world...)

[AslanTheMentat]

Try this on for size :)

I have THREE PS3s. [youtube.com]

Good stuff...

Re:

[pragma_x]

I have THREE PS3s.

Well.. I don't, but at least I have cake.

Re:

[sethstorm]

That's a lie.

Re:Dear the rest of the world...

[Ubergrendle]

You must be new here - welcome! Are you familiar with all sections [slashdot.org] of Slashdot?

Re:

[Bearpaw]

Wow, I've never seen so much smug in a single post outside of a Prius owner's forum.

Try looking here. [google.com]

Re:

[Pope]

...where all the MS and Linux dorks brag smugly about their machines, and any attempts at correcting lies with facts are modded Flamebait.

Re:

[SMS_Design]

It'll be exactly where I put it a year ago.

Considering the demand on the Wii and the resulting rise in value... Don't count on it.

It's really small.

[Thanshin]

Really, really small. And quite cheap.

If it becomes too hard to find, just go to a friend's house and take his.

Leaving the money where the Wii was, is regarded as a nice touch.

Bundle packs

[RootsLINUX]

I have resisted all "Wii bundle" deals that stores try to offer because I just don't like the idea of being forced to buy other things when all I want is a console. But now that the Wii has been out for an entire year and I have still yet to lay my eyes on an Wii unit in retail stores, I have surrendered myself to the thought. Fortunately my mother works at Costco so next shipment of Wiis they get, she will be buying one of the bundles for me (which I believe isn't too bad: wii unit, 2 controllers, 2 games of my choice, $340). Its nice to have someone close working in retail for times like these. :)

Re:

[Altus]

Thats pretty reasonable. Your likely to want the extra controller and certainly you will want some games. The packages last year seemed a lot less desirable (maybe because there weren't as many good games out for the Wii)

Re:Bundle packs

[LoverOfJoy]

I've heard of people buying bundles from walmart online only to return the parts they don't want right back to their local walmart. You might want to try that out.

Re:

[tilandal]

Thats a nice deal. As for me, I kept calling stores for weeks but I eventually got mine just by walking into Best Buy and there were 2 on the shelf. I bought one and I saw the other one on Craig's List that evening. Havn't seen any on shelves since and that was months ago.

Re:

[Thansal]

Yup, the Costco Bundles are very nice. I bought a bundle a few months after release (I think it was circuit city): an extra wiimote/nunchuk, Zelda, and Red Steel (Yes, I did want both games).

honestly, they are not THAT hard to get a hold of. A few tips:
1) Walk into your local EB/GameStop/bestbuy/whatever and ask when they expect to get the next shipment (day and time), if you don't know just ask when their weekly shipments come in. Be there around noon (generally) and ask if they have received the shipme

Hype

[MrHanky]

How is this news? It's advertising, a reminder that you should buy a Wii and buy it now, since it's still readily available and presumably won't be in a couple of weeks. That is, it won't be if the hype works like planned.

Re:

[poot_rootbeer]

you should buy a Wii and buy it now, since it's still readily available and presumably won't be in a couple of weeks.

Correct, except for the part about the Wii being "still readily available". The Wii is in short supply now, as it has been for the entire past year.

Re:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"How is this news? It's advertising, a reminder that you should buy a Wii and buy it now, since it's still readily available and presumably won't be in a couple of weeks."

Uh, no. It's sold out right now. They actually sold 1 million units Thanksgiving week. They're 'advertising' something you cannot realistically go buy right now.

meh

[Pojut]

They aren't exactly just collecting dust on shelves, but they can be easily found. Sure, it takes a bit of research (when is what store going to get a shipment in) and getting up early in the morning so as to be in line to get it when the store opens, but they CAN be gotten. It just takes a bit of effort. My ladyfriend and I camped out overnight about 6 months ago to get ours...grabbed two packs of ciggs, put a bunch of futurama episodes on my PSP's 2 gig memory stick, a couple of folding chairs, a littl

Re:

[Pojut]

But they can be. Every gamestop in my area said the same thing: "We get them on Friday...first come first serve"

People are buying them out so they are obviously available...you just have to be there before other people to get it:-) I mean...you wouldn't want your stuff in their house, would you?

"Someone else would have bought our stuff...our stuff, in their house!" -Gallagher

Sometimes it isn't that hard...

[tlhIngan]

It's still relatively easy to get a Wii here. They sell out, but not at the furious pace they used to.

Last year, they sold out before the store opens (because of more people lining up overnight than the store had). Then it changed early in the new year where it sold out in about 20 minutes. During the summer, it easily took a day to sell out, and now, about a week. (Still brisker than a PS3.)

At least here (Vancouver, BC), if you really wanted one, you can get one if you try. No fancy lining up, just check a bunch of stores during the week. I spot them quite easily - just check all the usual stores over the course of a week. You don't have to check every store daily - just once a week, and you're bound to run into one with one in stock within a week or two. From observations, companies like Best Buy and other big electronic chains typically get big shipments (~30/week or so per store), than game stores like EBGames (maybe 3 a week). Wal-Mart tends to get a few as well. Generalize to other big stores.

Of course, with Christmas approaching, I expect the sellout time to be around a day again, so if you have an electronics store (Best Buy, whatever) along your commute, it may help to stop by. If you ask nicely, they may even tell you when the shipments normally come in, so you can plan to visit that day, the day before (stuff occasionally arrives early), and the next business day (in case it's late). Heck, most stores post signs nowadays, so you don't have to ask, or offer clues (e.g., bundles) that they're in stock.

Yeah...

[tarun713]

...does anyone else remember all the news stores about the Wii before it release last year? And how every 3rd comment was someone saying "There's no need to wait in line, there are going to be plenty! I plan to walk into a store the day after release and buy one." ...12 hrs in line vs 1+ year of it being incredibly difficult to come across. I'm glad I waited in line. :D

I'm glad I stood in line at launch too

[Piata]

I remember feeling kind of silly waiting in line for a Wii. "There will be lots more" I was thinking... but I got mine on launch and then the demand only increased. My older brother wanted to get one for his family for Christmas, and he spent the next month trying to acquire one, even missing work on several occasions to do it.

The same people saying the demand for the Wii is imaginary are most likely the same people that called the Wii a fad. Aren't fads supposed to fade out? or am I missing something her

HOW TO FIND A WII IN THE US

[B00yah]

I've helped over 2 dozen people find wiis since launch (i got mine at midnight, so I was good), and I'll tell you all the same thing I've told them:

Check the weekly ads for Target and Best Buy on their respective websites on Saturday night/Sunday Morning. If there's a Wii in the Best Buy ad, go there immediately (sunday morning), they'll be there (ask if they're not on shelves, they may have not been stocked yet). If it's in the target ad, go to the store and ask the person working in electronics when they usually get their shipments in (day of the week). You should be good to get one if you get there before 10am that day.

Re:

[LoverOfJoy]

I believe those tactics would have worked great where I live a month or so ago...but I'm not so sure now that holiday season is starting to pick up.

Re:

[WidescreenFreak]

You beat me to it. I've had no less than five opportunities to buy Wiis this year. (I own two now.) Each time that I was able to buy them was either early in the morning on Sunday (Target) or during the week while I was out looking around at lunch (both Target and Best Buy). I told this to a co-worker and he managed to get a Wii at a Gamestop on a Friday. Just a few weeks ago I was at a local Target at around 10:30 AM and they have over a dozen available.

Also, I had five Wiimotes and two nunchucks b

Re:

[merreborn]

Same strategy worked for me, back in February. Checked the ad Sunday morning, and strolled in 90 minutes after opening. They had 50+ units left, and there were maybe 10 people in line. I was out of there in under half an hour.

They've been easy to find all year, if you shop smart. Granted, units might be a bit harder to come by this month, as demand spikes again...

Re:

[TheSpoom]

I actually created a script that checked and regexed this Canada Wii online inventory scraper [corwin.ca] every minute (on a cron) and emailed me when it found one (and I set my email to check every minute). Took about a week, but I managed to get one from the Best Buy online store in the ~15 minutes they were in stock.

Unfortunately the page appears to be broken but if someone would like me to code a replacement I could probably do that for a reasonable fee (I mean, I already have one) and have it email you instead.

If

No Mom, It's MY Wii

[dorath]

My mom got me a Wii for my birthday, and she has all but come out and said that she wants it back. She threatened to buy her own if I didn't bring mine for Thanksgiving (in retrospect I should have called her bluff). My aunts and uncles went absolutely nuts over Wii Sports Boxing. In 33 years I've never seen them get so worked up over any kind of game, much less heard them yelling and shrieking like they were. So yeah, I'd say that they're going to be hard to find. My mom hates consoles in general, but she'd really like a Wii.

Re:No Mom, It's MY Wii

[Autumnmist]

Thanksgiving this year was hysterical for me. I sat there watching my extended family gathering around the Wii like they were in a Nintendo commercial. I got *scolded* for forgetting to bring Wii Sports (had Rayman and Wii Play with me though). Even my grandmother was getting into the game, mumbling things about the players currently at the controls. I have now been charged with bringing home extra controllers from school so that we can have 4 player at Christmas.

Re:No Mom, It's MY Wii

[Tetsujin]

she'd really like a Wii.

Well then she'd better go and have one then - it's not good for the bladder holding it in like that.

Sorry, I was waiting for an "I'd like a Wii" statement...

Oh, good... 'Cause, you know, that joke just gets funnier every time I hear it.

(Dude left himself wide open, even talked about his mom wanting a Wii, and best you got is that she had to go to the toilet? I woulda been all like "watersports" and such... You know, his mom doesn't have wii she needs to get rid of, she wants it... Such a waste...)

Shortage should not affect most slashdotters

[sudnshok]

When I decided to by mine, I just set up a script that checked Amazon every minute or two. I know they have sites that do that already, but there are hundreds of people signed up for the email notifications on those sites. I figured if I had my own script I might get a head start on those people - which paid off. I think I had my script running for only 3 days before I got my Wii. I'm sure many other slashdotters did the same.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Mine was just delivered...

[Gybrwe666]

Amazon is putting them on the website as they get shipments, as are Best Buy and, I've heard, others. I just had a tab open in my browser and refreshed every little bit. One minute it was $425-$600 on Amazon, the next minute it was $249.xx, no sales tax, no shipping. From what I could tell, the units lasted about 30 minutes, and the word hit the Internet on forums and message boards damn fast.

Of course, it was over $500 on Amazon Resellers this morning.

Same for DDR and Guitar Hero, which are apparently incredibly rare games for no apparent reason that I can see. One minute DDR was $168, the next it was $69.99. What's amusing is seeing how fast the Amazon resellers react and adjust their prices.

Bill

Not Indicative

[JamesRose]

Look, 1.8million made 1/3 go to US, so 600 000 in the US, 150 000 A week in the US

350 000 sold last week

Now, think about that, if every week they sold 350 000, and they only made 150 000, how did they find the extra 200 000.

Two answers- either they have a stockpile (not likely considering stores have been empty for almsot a year) - OR - they DIDN'T sell 350 000 units in the previous weeks.

Now, could we in future post articles which aren't based on freak statistics and make out those results are normal.

Re:

[seebs]

Actually, it seems quite likely they did stockpile some -- they may have had production ramped up this far as early as August, and they weren't selling that fast in September and October.

Re:Not Indicative

[Phisbut]

Two answers- either they have a stockpile (not likely considering stores have been empty for almsot a year) - OR - they DIDN'T sell 350 000 units in the previous weeks.

Or maybe, just maybe, Nintendo knows November is a great month in North-America compared to Europe or Japan, and they decided to ship a little more to the US and a little less everywhere else for that month. I think the US is about the only (big) country to massively buy and give gifts in November, most of the world waits till December.

Re:

[Just Some Guy]

Two answers- either they have a stockpile (not likely considering stores have been empty for almsot a year) - OR - they DIDN'T sell 350 000 units in the previous weeks.

They did. At least, a lot of stores did. We recently bought the last Wii available for sale at the local Gamestop just before they were ordered from on high to hold them back so there'd be a few on sale for Black Friday. They only had maybe two more in the store that they could hold anyway, so maybe "stockpiling" is a little overstated.

Regret with Mario and Smash Bros.?

[hansamurai]

I bought a Wii at launch and sold it about a month later to my brother-in-law on the cheap because he wanted one. At the time I really don't think I made a mistake, and I still mostly agree with that. Until Mario Galaxy came out, there were absolutely zero games I was interested in. I played through Zelda and put tons of hours into Wii Sports with family and friends, good fun and all, but what has come out since then? Metroid and Mario basically. Maybe Zack and Wiki but I don't really know anything abo

How I got one

[DoofusOfDeath]

I got one this summer at a FYE store in New England.

My tactic was pretty simple: Ask all of the stores in my area what day of the week they typically get deliveries on. Then call each store on its standard delivery day (and the day after, if the shipment hadn't been unpacked when I called), asking if they had a Wii. It paid off in several months.

I was probably also lucky that I wasn't doing this during the holiday season, otherwise the Wiis probably would have been all snapped up before I got there. But still, my approach may be worth a shot.

P.S. It really is a lot of fun, especially for a casual gamer like me.

Amazon.de or Amazon.fr

[ctid]

I know of people in the UK who have bought Wiis from Amazon in Germany or in France - there doesn't seem to be any problem with shipping to the UK. It's in stock now (ie 17:08 GMT on 29th November 2007) at Amazon.de [amazon.de]. "Verfügbarkeit: Auf Lager." Means, "Availability: In Stock". Just at the moment it is out of stock at the French Amazon store.

Find a Wii using Target Product Lookup

[Anonymous Coward]

This method is not guaranteed, but it will help a lot. It helps best if you live in a large urban area with multiple stores around.

1. Wait until midweek. Tuesdays are good, but Wednesday or Thursday also works.
2. Actually physically visit a Target. Go early after opening. Go to where the Wii should be in the locked glass container.
3. Look at the label strip where the $249.99 price is. Look for a series of numbers under a barcode. This is Target's internal tracking number for the item. Write this number down. Mak

If you want a Wii...

[W2k]

Go to Sweden. I was visiting a major household/electronics retailer the other day and Wiis were gathering dust on the shelves. I very nearly bought one myself, despite not owning a TV and generally preferring PC games anyway. Maybe now I'll go buy one and sell it for profit on eBay...

Got mine.

[Jason Levine]

My wife managed to get me one as a present covering Father's Day, our anniversary, and my birthday. This was back in late-May. Now, I play it at least once a week with my four year old son. He loves WiiSports bowling and golf. Ok, he doesn't quite grasp the concept of golf and loves whacking the ball when it is 2 feet away from the hole into the water trap 50 feet away. Still he has fun. When it comes to bowling, though, he's surprisingly good. He has a high score of 121 and learned how to aim the ba

Remember the storeis 4 months ago?

[gurps_npc]

Ever since the Wii came out, Sony, etc. have always been saying "it's all hype, it will go away in a few months."

I remember a Slasdot story about 4 months ago that basically said the Wii had peaked, that all the non-gamers that wanted one had bought it already, and it was sitting unused, while the gamers did not want one.

What crap.

Sony etc. are still caught in the "better chip/video, at any cost" model. Nintendo got it right, the video is more than good enough at the low end. It will take another revolution in video quality to make the best chips worth it again. For now, better games and better controllers are where it is at.

Why you can't find one NOW

[Kjella]

Is because of Super Mario Galaxy. It's quite possibly the best Nintendo has come up with in ages, and it's selling consoles on the double by itself. In the last four weeks (according to vgchartz.com), the Wii has sold 280k, 265k, 435k, 640k units world wide. Add that up for a total of 1620k units in a month. When we know they're producing 1800k units/month, that basicly means there's almost nothing being stockpiled for Christmas. And the console market just explodes by Christmas...

Re:

[ack154]

Ya, there's something like 10k+ on eBay right now. Average selling price for just the console is over $400 plus probably $30-$40 shipping.

I was hoping to find one or two to sell on eBay myself. But I have family and friends that I would find them for first since I know other people looking. I've been telling people to buy a bundle if they see one in a store - even the $700 Walmart bundle. At least that way they get some of the things they would buy eventually anyways and they're not paying any inflated pric

Re:

[Samus]

The display is just to get you in the door. The boxes are all empties and the clerk will probably laugh when you ask if they have any. If you are desperate they may have a waiting list. Or you can find out what days they get their shipments on and stop by early each day.

Re:eBay Effect

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"The employees in the stores get first dibs on the consoles when they come in, so they buy up most of them and sell them on eBay for big profit."

That's possible, but not necessarily true. The retailer I worked at would have forbidden that. If high demand items were in low supply, we weren't allowed to buy them. I know the same was also true for the EB that was down the street. Those stores didn't want that reputation.

Re:eBay Effect

[Tim Browse]

You're right! Your anecdotal evidence totally trumps that other guy's anecdotal evidence!

Go you!

Re:It's all about over-hype and sheeple

[PJ1216]

Me? I'll wait a couple of months after Xmas and buy a Wii

thats what people said last year too.

Re:It's all about over-hype and sheeple

[jjohnson]

You broke the needle on my 'smug elitist' detector.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"This is a self-fulfilling scenario where inducing an artificial shortage (by not making enough) creates a huge demand because every kid has to show his/her friends he's managed to get a Wii and every parent is made to feel like a terrible parent because he/she's not managed to get one for the kids."

They're producing 1.8 million units a month. That is not inducing an artifical shortage. (Not to mention, there's absolutely no way they could sustain the hype for over a year. People do get tired of waiting.

Re:It's all about over-hype and sheeple

[Marx_Mrvelous]

You're wrong about one key point; they are not creating an artificial demand. They are running at full capacity and believe me, they'd sell more if they could. Maybe last year you could make this claim, but they are losing sales to MS and Sony because they can't keep units stocked. It's a nice conspiracy theory, but like most, only sounds good when you don't apply logic or look deeply into the issues :) Throw in a Sheeple, and you're 90% troll! (And Maybe I just got trolled!)

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[Fulcrum of Evil]

all you're doing is restating the original assertion.

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[Smidge204]

Console manufacturers make their money on game sales, not consoles. It's nice that Nintendo actually DOES make money on a console sale, last I heard, but the games are still the primary income.

There is virtually no incentive to deliberately short the supply. Every day a person who wants a Wii can't find one is another day they might break down and buy something else. The more consoles you can get into the homes the more likely you are to attract better games and make more money. They want to sell you that c

Re:It's all about over-hype and sheeple

[644bd346996]

The Wii is the fastest selling console in history, and is currently selling at about four times the rate of the Xbox 360. Is it that hard to believe that sales are genuinely exceeding expectations? Certainly at launch time, very few of the pundits or fanboys were seriously predicting sales of this magnitude. Also, Nintendo has been increasing production significantly - from 1M to 1.8M per month. That doesn't exactly lend credibility to your theory that the shortage is completely artificial.

Besides, do you really think Nintendo was equipped to predict the Wii's popularity in new markets, such as retirement homes? I simply don't see any way that demand hasn't far exceeded Nintendo's expectations.

An artificial shortage would only help Nintendo if it enabled them to sell more consoles in the long run or if it enabled them to jack up prices. They obviously aren't going to increase the price, so how might an artificial shortage still lead to increased sales in the long run? Earlier in the year, it would have been reasonable to say that they wanted to wait until there were some solid games out, but with the hype about Super Mario Galaxy, it seems pretty clear that that time is over. So, if Nintendo is capable of making significant production increases, why wait?

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[KlomDark]

"Me? I'll wait a couple of months after Xmas and buy a Wii when they're cheaper"

Wow, that's exactly what I said last year. Then around April I said fuck it and bought one on eBay for $330.

Maybe Christmas 2008... :)

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[Total_Wimp]

But why spend money on GameCube games? You'll never have enough time to to play them all. You're being manipulated into thinking this will make your life complete. you should look beyond material possessions to what's really important. Why not put the money in a 401k for retirement or donate to a homeless shelter?

Sometimes the sheeple (probably the same people that camp outside stores for an iPhone) need to step beyond material possessions some time and think about how they are ultimately just being mani

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[Blakey Rat]

But why spend money on GameCube games? You'll never have enough time to to play them all. You're being manipulated into thinking this will make your life complete. you should look beyond material possessions to what's really important. Why not put the money in a 401k for retirement or donate to a homeless shelter?

Why click through to stories about video games only to spend time typing long messages to tell people they're wasting their lives? Does that make your life complete in some way? Hypocrite.

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[poot_rootbeer]

I'll wait a couple of months after Xmas and buy a Wii when they're cheaper

Yeah, that's what I said to myself LAST year. Maybe it'll work out better for us this time.

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[timster]

inducing an artificial shortage (by not making enough)

Come on... I'm not buying that line for a minute. Nintendo sold something like 20 million GameCubes over five years. Interest was simply never all that high. Now it's one thing to believe in your products, but another to put capital on the line for expensive production capacity assuming that your new system will sell 15 million in *one* year after your last system sold 20 million in five years. There's no way that Nintendo, always a conservative comp

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[arodland]

The XBox 360 was released in November of 2005. In the following 22 months (up to the end of 9/07) Microsoft reported sales of 13.4M units (594K per 30-day month). Wii was released in November of 2006. Also as of the end of 9/07, Nintendo reported total sales of 13.2M units (1.25M per 30-day month). Nearly the same total sales, in less than half the time. Do you really think that Nintendo would be so stupid as to create a shortage of something that sells like that, especially given that (unlike MS or Sony) t

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[TheNinjaroach]

at the moment I'm having great fun buying up ultra-cheap Gamecube games from all the trade-ins the Wii frenzy has generated.

I'm having great fun buying up ultra-cheap Gamecube games -- to play on my Wii. Until recently, the Wii wasn't any good for much but replaying my older generation games. I picked up Mario Galaxy on Sunday and was very, very impressed with the title. The graphics look amazing (even at 61 inches) and the game itself is fantastic -- after a full year of wondering what I was going to do with the thing, I'm finally happy with my Wii.

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[ceoyoyo]

Right. It couldn't be because the Wii is fun.

It prints money!

[bluemonq]

Given the fact that it's going to take at least another month for supply to meet demand (and that ignores all the people who have been waiting for a Wii), what would give you the idea that Iwata and Co. would want to trim the price of the Wii? I'd be surprised if there was a price cut before summer.

Anyhow there's no point in going beyond material possesions if it's only temporarily. If you're so enlightened, why don't you just stick with your GameCube? There's still plenty of fun games for it and then you w

read much?

[DreadSpoon]

Dude, a record 1.8 million units produced each month. You do realize that there is an upper limit on production quantities for items like this, right? The amount of money Nintendo would have to blow to increase production (and the amount of money their suppliers would have to blow) could very easily outstrip their profits, and it won't be a long-term gain since eventually the market will be saturated and production requirements will decrease.

It isn't like you can just produce twice as many units by spendi

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[ifrag]

No. I just think Nintendo have done far more to make fun interesting games than Microsoft or Sony have.

And rightly so. Microsoft and Sony are not known for having great 1st party titles and Nintendo is. On the other hand, take a look at the 3rd party titles, and you'll find there actually are good games in that basket for MS and Sony (including some cross platform). So Nintendo provides you with the hardware AND the titles and MS/Sony are just looking to license others to develop on their hardware.

What

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[Pluvius]

Microsoft and Sony are not known for having great 1st party titles and Nintendo is.

"are not known for having" != "don't have"

Sony certainly has a wide variety of well-respected first- and second-party franchises; the fact that many people don't realize that Sony is responsible for them is irrelevant in terms of whether or not Sony is a good game-maker. As for Microsoft, it doesn't have many first-party games worth noting, but it does have XBox Live, which is just as important to modern console gaming in it

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[edwdig]

Aside from Gran Turismo and maybe a couple of other games I'm forgetting, this is true. But it's a moot point since the PS2 has been out for seven years now.

I did forget about Gran Turismo. But my point is Sony's been in the game industry for about 12 years now, but they've only started making much of a name for themselves in game development in the last 4 years or so. The PS3 not having much of interest doesn't help that out there either.

That's a problem with second-party developers in general. Nintendo's

Re:It's all about over-hype and sheeple

[Rallion]

I don't think the initial flurry of wiimote-powered titles was really anything to be proud of. The majority of them were rushed games that were little more than tech demos. Not even good tech demos. I think that the really good titles are still on the way. Nintendo's games (and a few others, like the RE4 port) prove that Red Steel is not a good example of what's possible on the system.

As for worrying about Nintendo's ability to keep producing, well, I wouldn't. I've had some issues with a few of the more recent Zelda games (Mask, Waker and Hourglass all had a horrifying amount of repetition) their other franchises are still getting better and better, in my estimation.

You can use the word 'rehash' but I think that's pretty unfair. What does it even mean? I always see it used in regards to things like the Mario series, which maintains a cast of characters and a tone, but each game brings something new to the table. People use the derogatoty word 'rehash' to describe this, whereas the same people have no such term for, say, the Halo series, where the gameplay of all three is nearly identical.

I realize that there's probably not a single company in the world that reuses IP as much as Nintendo, but I can't help but think "bullshit" when I see or hear somebody comment that they don't want to play another game with Mario in it. Does that specific set of polygons and textures actually make the gameplay less fun for some people? I might as well say that I'm tired of playing games with AK-47's. Or, if you want to stick to the playable characters, soldiers.

Two paragraph rant that hinges on a single word in original post: over.

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[king-manic]

No. I just think Nintendo have done far more to make fun interesting games than Microsoft or Sony have.

Plus I've never bought a music CD protected by a Nintendo rootkit or stayed up into the small hours reinstalling Nintendo Windows XP on a relative's PC because of viruses and spyware. :-)

Nintendo does some things well but they aren't' the "saviors of gaming". Sony and Microsoft have contributed as well. Without MS pushing live, online console play may still be a minute market. Without Sony laying the sales smackdown for two generations Nintendo may still be the monopolistic nanny corp it was back in it's hey day. Without MS pushing online content we may not have the PSN store or the wii shopping. Each of the three have made contributions.

As well Nintendo DRMs all it's games and their VC it

Re:It's all about over-hype and sheeple

[scot4875]

Yeah, because it was such a *bad* thing that they tried to reign in developers so that we wouldn't have another Atari-esque debacle, with a deluge of terrible uninspired games to bury the few gems in a confusing mess that caused that whole video game crash thing.

And yeah, telling developers that they could only release X number of titles per year was such an awful thing, because then it forced them to at least *try* to make a quality product, rather than assigning a single programmer the task of creating a video game -- and giving him a couple weeks to do it before it shipped. (ET anyone?)

As for censorship, the only 2 titles I know of that Nintendo actively censored were Mortal Kombat and Wolfenstein 3D. In the NES era there were pictures of Hitler's exploding head, implied sex, and plenty of other stuff. By the end of the SNES era, the blood was right back in MK2. And honestly I can't fault Nintendo for trying to avoid controversy with parents/religious groups because we all know how much worse those people are than some idiot gamers whining that they can't see blood or nazi symbols.

Their tactics were definitely heavy-handed, but you failed to mention the *one* thing that they really should be called on, and that was their dealing with retailers. They did everything they could to keep competitors products off the shelves.

And give an example of Nintendo being "bad" now...? Yeah, they shut down some pirate sites. That doesn't seem to bad to me. Yeah, they did go after some flash cart makers, and while that definitely sucks, the flash carts were primarily being sold as a piracy tool (spare me the homebrew argument, I know it all and that's why I think it sucks that they were shut down) so I can't really fault them for that.

Here's what Nintendo hasn't done: they haven't paid off developers for exclusives. They haven't sold consoles at a loss to try to buy their way into a new market. They haven't completely sold out and commercialized every aspect of my favorite hobby. They didn't help EA become the behemoth it is by helping them sell millions of cheap disc-based copies of Madden every year to idiot frat boys. They also haven't ever insulted me by saying that I should be willing to go take a second job to afford their game console, or reneged on a "$1200 per PS3 in the wild" deal made by one of their top execs. They've never released misleading hardware specifications (60 million! polygons per second! (unlit, untextured, single-pixel triangles on a single triangle strip)) or reported consoles/games shipped rather than sold.

So yeah, I'll defend them as one of the good guys. I can overlook some poor decisions in the 90s and a couple anticompetitive practices from the 80s. Besides, Sony is the poor decision maker lately, and Microsoft has a whole history of anticompetitive practices that continue today.

--Jeremy