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Nintendo Businesses Wii

Nintendo Refutes Wii Shortage 79

Posted by Zonk from the not-our-prob-bob dept.
Nintendo has responded to accusations leveled against it earlier this week by GameStop, saying that Wii shortages are due to demand. Nintendo's George Harrison told Next-Gen.biz in a phone interview that "That's not at all the case. We have worldwide territories that are all competing over the available production. The Japan and European markets are doing extremely well with the Wii. People in Japan at NCL [Nintendo Co. Ltd.] are making the best decisions that they can about which products get shipped to which market and when." An EU marketing director is also quoted at GamesIndustry.biz responding to criticism about the lack of new Wii titles, as well as the supply shortage. Nintendo's Laurent Fischer asserts that the company has a 'release it when it's ready' attitude, and that they'll release products when they meet the company's standards.
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Nintendo Refutes Wii Shortage More

Nintendo Refutes Wii Shortage

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  • LOL @ "Wii Shortage" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sciros ( 986030 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @04:11PM (#18548491) Journal
    Hehehe that one never gets old.

    I also think Gamestop's idea about Nintendo trying to purposefully withhold units is probably wrong... there's some logic there but it's weak given that a lot of people WANT TO BUY ONE right now and it won't really hurt Nintendo any to sell a console now rather than next week...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 )
      When it comes to GameStop vs. anyone else, I think my biases would lean to whoever that other party is. Let's just say that GameStop's retail practices aren't totally upstanding.
      • Who knows, but damn near every next gen console release ends up the same, with customers unable to get their hands on one. I don't know if it's intentional to build hype, incompetence, or who knows what but people actually WANT to buy your product, but you won't sell it to them. That just makes no sense, impulsive buyers don't place backorders, and most likely won't come back every week until they're in stock, they'll go buy an Xbox or PS3 to satisfy their urge to buy. I'd own a Wii right now, but the 36

        • Re:LOL @ "Wii Shortage" (Score:5, Insightful)

          by zippthorne ( 748122 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @04:50PM (#18549041) Journal
          It's much more simple than that. There is an impulse of demand right at the beginning, and possibly increasing demand following that, but the production is a continuous process. So unless you over-produce (and incur the capital expense of setting up more factories than necessary) there will be a shortage at the beginning, and it will continue until production out paces increasing demand (due to exposure) for long enough to catch up.

          Ideally, they will size their production to the continuous demand at middle-of-life to end-of-life, rather than over build and then decommission factories that do not produce enough to break even before becoming unnecessary.

          The other option is more liquid pricing, similar to the way airlines do it, to ensure that everyone that wants one badly enough can get one, but this does not help customer goodwill and leads to cries of "price gouging."
          • Yes but i'd think by now they'd realize there is going to be a demand. Rather every time they rush the launch of their new highly anticipated system knowing they have a very limited supply, and millions of fans go home disappointed. Doesn't seem like the best business practice. Or maybe it is, I don't know.

            • "Yes but i'd think by now they'd realize there is going to be a demand. Rather every time they rush the launch of their new highly anticipated system knowing they have a very limited supply, and millions of fans go home disappointed. Doesn't seem like the best business practice. Or maybe it is,"

              Let's see - either ramp up production for the release at levels that you will never again need (and incur that huge expense - and the worst possible time; the transition from generation to generation is not a good

            • Yes but i'd think by now they'd realize there is going to be a demand.

              Of course they realize that. So what are they supposed to do? As far as I can tell, they have two options:

              1. Have huge production capacity before the launch. That'sa a bad idea, since they can't be sure if it'll flop or how big exactly demand will be until they start selling, and even if the product does not flop, demand will eventually decrease, and then they will have to deal with having useless production capacity. So that would be a big waste of money for production capacity they will eventually not ne

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by Wdomburg ( 141264 )
          Right. Nintendo should snap their fingers so that more consoles magically appear.
          • Or maybe they could prepare for their release a little better, maybe by making more units. When every new console is virtually un-findable for weeks after release it's pretty apparent they should be stocking up better beforehand, but then their marketing departments lose the inflated impression of having a super-hot in-demand item, which is probably what this is all about.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Echnin ( 607099 )
              So they should postpone launch until they have enough units to fill demand, instead of selling them as they make them. Brilliant.

            • Re:LOL @ "Wii Shortage" (Score:4, Insightful)

              by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @06:51PM (#18550535)
              No.

              Nintendo did a bang up job.

              Their launch date was relatively inflexible, they NEEDED to be out of the gate before christmas, both to get the christmas hype, and to be in the running with the PS3 launch.

              Next consider that Sony's PS3 launch shortages were largely aggravated by production problems leading to shortages. If they'd had the number of units they wanted to have, and told everyone they would have the PS3 launch would not have been 'un-findable' for weeks. And for quite a while now the PS3 has been readily available. Sony's assessment of initial demand was actually pretty good (excepting the EU launch) but they got screwed by production issues.

              Nintendo, by contrast, promised DOUBLE the number of units that Sony did, and they DELIVERED them, and it STILL wasn't nearly enough, and even today 5 months later you STILL can't buy one. Now Nintendo clearly underestimated demand, but even if they'd guessed right they'd have had to have placed there initial orders in early 2006 in order to change anything, because they really couldn't move the launch date much more than a week. Nintendo got taken by surprise by the demand, and then there was little they could do.

              Then a lot of people guessed it was just the christmas factor as the Wii became one of the holiday seasons 'hot items' in which case demand would have died off after christmas. Parent's who couldn't get a wii would get something else, and that would be the end of it. But it didn't, and pent up demand still devoured every unit they put on shelves as fast as they can make them.

              So Nintendo started making plans to ramp up production because it was clear finally that it wasn't just a christmas hype thing, or the initial launch excitement, but genuine real demand. But ramping up takes time, and now we're approaching april... it will be interesting to see if they can finally get ahead of demand with 6 million+ units shipped, and now increasing the number of units made weekly. Its a problem ANYONE would love to have.

              But suggesting Nintendo should have prepared better by having made 6 million? Or 10 million? units is absurd. (Hell we really don't know how many they'd need because they still haven't satisfied the pre-christmas demand - ie most of the people buying them now, have wanted them since before christmas -- we haven't even begun to really hit the group of people that might impulse buy one if they happened to see them in stores because they are almost never on shelves for more than hour out of an entire a week.)

              After all, if they'd made 10 million of the things and then sold only 5, they'd be sitting on LOT of expensive inventory. And you have to remember that in early 2006 when they would have had to gauge the demand for their initial orders the jury was still out on whether the wii was a doomed virtual-boy gimmick. A lot of the game sites were disinterested and down on the whole concept. Several developers hadn't really committed to the platform because they weren't sure if it was going to have any legs. And the forums were filled with sony/xbox fanbois shitting on the lack of hd and the specs in general.

              Nintendo knew they were trying to appeal to a broader audience than pixel-shader-snobs (the so-called "hardcore gamer"), but it would have been difficult to really gauge what the uptake of that audience would be like. After all non-gamers and ex-gamers, even if you could interest them in a console, aren't likely to be frothing at the mouth like a ps3 fanboy to get one the day it launches.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
          That just makes no sense, impulsive buyers don't place backorders, and most likely won't come back every week until they're in stock, they'll go buy an Xbox or PS3 to satisfy their urge to buy.

          Not many people have a spare 350€ they can just throw out on a whim. Most don't buy a 250+€ device on impulse, that kind of money usually gets careful consideration.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by maxume ( 22995 )
          They have to balance the launch date, initial demand and ongoing demand. If they outfit a lot more manufacturing than is justified by ongoing demand, a bunch of it goes unused once the initial demand is met; putting off the launch date just to build up supply to meet the initial demand doesn't necessarily help anything. In this case, it seems like they just misjudged the market, but there are all sorts of other things that could factor in(like some huge jump in fixed costs to increase capacity a little bit)
          • The costs involved in the baseball thing are a little different, but I'm not real shocked that not every game is worth putting on tv(and I think that the teams make a bigger chunk on the gate than they do on tv rights, but I'm not sure).

            Not really, blacked out games are televised they're just not available in certain zipcodes, for any price. There's a demand for it, the games are available, MLB is in the business of selling games, but people just simply aren't allowed to buy them. Getting off topic but
    • heh, it is kinda getting old: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070 326 [ctrlaltdel-online.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Cius ( 918707 )
      Okay, I've no clue about the reality of this, but I'll relate "my friend's" story. Not "friend of a friend", just "my friend".

      A friend was looking for a Wii, so he hit up Wal-mart. Wal-mart has everything right? Well, not that day they didn't. However, he managed to talk to manager that told him they were supposed to get some in through UPS the next day, a ton of them (my friend said 30 or so). Well, suitably excited, he shows up the next day and asks about them only to be told that they had none. Nat

  • But, But, I'm Special... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dark Kenshin ( 764678 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @04:14PM (#18548531) Journal

    "People in Japan at NCL [Nintendo Co. Ltd.] are making the best decisions that they can about which products get shipped to which market and when."

    Well I like to take the ignorant and arrogant stance of "It should be in MY market, and it should be here NOW." Unfortunately my talks with these companies are not going so well...

  • Business people annoy me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Forrest Kyle ( 955623 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @04:15PM (#18548565) Homepage
    I think it says volumes about how far removed from the realities of engineering your average "business person" is that releasing something when it's done is viewed as some kind of rogue attitude.

    I would rather have 80% fewer games released every year, if each game was well crafted by a team with full creative control who were passionate about what they were working on and had ample time to finish. The only thing releasing a deluge of unfinished but in-time-for-christmas junk accomplishes is it lines the pocket of the kinds of sharks the industry could do without.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tzhuge ( 1031302 )
      Daikatana and DNFs for every Half-Life It's certainly not a good thing to release incomplete games... but I think I prefer passionate and creative people to have some business pressures.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jearil ( 154455 )
        DNF hasn't been released, so it's impossible to say if it was worth the wait yet.

        However, I would refer to Blizzard as being a good example of how "When it's done" should work. Considering that Warcraft III by all accounts was supposed to be out about 2 years before it was finally released, and then everyone raved about how awesome it was, the extra time they took seemed to make it an excellent game. In a similar light, they did the same with World of Warcraft. Having one of the longest beta periods of an

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Salmar ( 991564 )
          I agree completely with this statement. All of the most respected game companies—Square Enix, Blizzard, Nintendo— have used this strategy consistently throughout their lifetimes, and I believe it has payed off for them. I waited for FF III, and had no regrets. I waited for the Wii, and it was certainly worth it. Now, I'm waiting for Phantom Hourglass and Metroid Prime 3, and I don't expect to be disappointed, either. It takes considerable time and effort to become the best, and the best gam
    • Then it's not all business people who annoy you. It's only the short-sighted business people who annoy you.

      Any business person with a good understanding of market forces and real concern for the long-term health and growth of the business understands the value of intangible things like customer satisfaction, corporate reputation, and word-of-mouth.

      Unfortunately it is true that 95% of business people (and thus businesses) are incredibly short-sighted and stupid.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 )
      I agree with you, but also note that on the business end of things, that's going to lead to failure unless you're the kind of studio (like Valve) that can shoulder interminably long delays.

      I knew one of the developers for one of those really half-assed paintball games from the late 90's and he said they just didn't code for any AI, eventhough you could play against "computer opponents" -- what they had was nothing even remotely resembling AI, just some basic, possibly randomized script.

      Who knows if that was

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Mex ( 191941 )
      The dangers of not having someone to whip engineers into shape are also present. Witness Duke Nukem Forever, which is the ultimate "Release it when it's ready" horror story.

      A balance is needed. An engineer would work ages on a project if he didn't need to make deadlines.
      • This is very true. I learned my lesson last year when I took a year off work before grad school, thinking I'd work on several projects I have in mind (some freelance writing, for example). Ha! With a complete lack of deadlines, I am useless! Self-set deadlines with no external pressure do nothing for me, either. Now that I'm back in school, I'm doing a great job of keeping on top of projects both for my classes and out of class.
      • Correct. Besides the "if it weren't for the last 10 minutes, nothing would ever get done" effect that deadlines can have, design in general is one of those things where you can almost never step back and say 100% that it's finished. There's always going to be something else to tweak, or another idea to try, etc. Eventually you have to just call it a day and save the rest for the next project.
    • Ah, but you wouldn't have 80% less. You would have a longer wait between announcement of a title's development and it's subsequent release.

      Based on that logic DNF will blow. our. minds.

      Of course the longer development cycle always generates a hue & cry from the consumers. Maybe placing all the blame on the publishers indicates a convenient blind spot? After all, they have to please their buyers (ie you).

  • Meanwhile, Microsoft's spokesman, Ringo Starr... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @04:48PM (#18549009) Journal
    .. commented that there was now an adequate supply of 360 on the market. And that each third console will come with a randomly packaged Thomas the Tank Engine faceplate.

  • definitely holding back production (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Thanatos69 ( 993924 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @05:12PM (#18549307)
    Lets look at the numbers, depending on who you go through:

    http://nexgenwars.com/ [nexgenwars.com]
    360 - 10.8M
    PS3 - 2.3M
    Wii - 5.3M

    http://www.vgcharts.org/ngwars.php [vgcharts.org]
    360 - 9.8M
    PS3 - 2.8M
    Wii - 6.3M

    so yeah, I can definitely see how they are holding back on production given that the system has been out for 4 months now and selling 1.5M a month. Could you imagine if they weren't holding back?

    • Are you being sarcastic? Do you have any idea the resources involved in building and shipping 1.5 million consoles a month? Xbox 360 has had over a year to get that many numbers out.

      • Re:definitely holding back production (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30, 2007 @06:27PM (#18550269)
        No, he definitely wasn't being sarcastic. Can you just imagine what the post would read if he was being sarcastic?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 )
        You're absolutely right. Nintendo has never had to do anything like this before...

        Oh, wait... Yes they have. Over and over again, and the last time was less than a year ago. Or perhaps you forgot about the Nintendo DS lite which sold just as quickly? Or the DS the christmas before, or the GBA SP? Last christmas (2005), Nintendo averaged over two million handhelds per month for four months over the Christmas season.

        Check your division on that 1.5 million number (5.5 divided by 4.5 is 1.2), and remember that

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )
          It took twice as long for the X360 to sell where the Wii is now. I hardly would call that getting their act together.

          Nintendo was doing better at the end of December than Xbox did at the end of March.

          Nintendo has had something like this before. Shortages on massivly selling items reaping them massive net income.

          The only console that was doing this well at 4 months in the US was the N64 (I only looked at the US market) and it was a stagered launch so it is not quite the same thing.

          Nintendohas produced a ma
          • Which necessarily means that, like the DS shortage at christmas, they're not keeping up with demand. OR, they are and are simply not giving consoles to regions that have taken longer to sell them than others... It's their marketing perogative, of course... I'm not faulting N for getting consoles to priority markets...

            Having said that, it's all about moving product, and if Nintendo wants to ride the goodwill of the Wii, they'd best move up some production schedules and turn the factories on 24/7 to meet the
    • Let me get this straight. The Wii, and less than half the price, has only sold about twice as many units as PS3s? Sony's doing better than I thought actually. And wait a minute, the PS3 has sold about 1/4 to 1/3 as many units as 360's despite having been on the market a year less? Not bad at all.

      Glad everyone can do math around here when the Playstation Sux0rz articles come up.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ClassMyAss ( 976281 )

        The Wii, and less than half the price, has only sold about twice as many units as PS3s? Sony's doing better than I thought actually...(snip)...Glad everyone can do math around here when the Playstation Sux0rz articles come up.

        Yet from the other side of this issue, one might notice that the PS3 has only sold half as many units as the Wii, and the Wii is still flying off the shelves within minutes of arriving, whereas PS3s are just sitting there in many locations. Even factoring in the price difference (whi

        • Nobody really cares if Sony loses out to the Wii in sheer demand since the Wii just can't handle some types of games that the PS3 and 360 can. There will be games (like Wii Sports) that just don't fit the PS3 and fit the Wii excellently, but I doubt you'll ever see the likes of F.E.A.R. or Oblivion showing up on a Wii.

          I'm sure there are developers excited about making a buck who will jump on the Wii bandwagon and there's nothing wrong with that -- but you'll end up in the long run with many of the same com

  • Effect of marketing.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @05:16PM (#18549363) Journal
    Do you think the "wii would like to play" campaign has helped this a bunch?

    Compare it to the PS3 commercials, where like a creepy baby explodes or ... i dunno, i dont know what the fuck I'm looking at. And then it says "its thinking". Maybe that was Dreamcast, they promoted it with nonsense too. I remember the commercial for Jet Grind Radio, and it was a bunch of screaming japanese people, I guess spoofing wacky japanese TV. You wouldn't know what the commercial was for, and the game itself kicked ass - all you needed was to show some ingame footage to sell it.

    I see PS3's campaign and MSFT's skip-rope jump in the game campaign, and as a gamer, wonder "what the fuck are they tyring to sell me?"

    Nintendo's sort of say "hey, check this out - it has no plans to dominate your whole life or change your lifestyle, or reinvent the way you watch tv - it's just a fun toy that anyone could have a blast with, and it's cheap too"

    I guess I'm saying I see Sony and MSFT distancing themselves from selling a "gaming console". They want to pretend they sell obscure services and convergance and other crap people dont understand, or even want.

    • Call me an outlier if you want, but I bought a Dreamcast because I saw that spot and just had to play whatever that commercial was selling me.
    • Well, Sony's marketing is due to Chiat-Day always pushing the terminally weird. The 1984 ad for Apple didn't show the product, hell - the first infiniti commercials just showed rocks and waterfalls. Blame it on the LA offices of TBWA Chiat-Day (just noticed they closed their SF offices - wiki's wrong on that - so is google maps, omnicom did re-open the office under a different name however).

      And you don't have to have worked their to know what they're about - but it helps (St. Louis office - closed in 1998 o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Raenex ( 947668 )
        The 1984 ad was brilliant. It worked on all levels. When all ads on TV were cheesy spots, it was a mini-movie. It had the "1984" vibe. The perfect message -- anti-IBM (unfriendly, corporate). The perfect timing -- launched during the Superbowl, before Superbowl ads were a big deal. If I recall it put Superbowl ads on the map.

        The PS3 ad campaign, while I'll give it style points, was totally the wrong message. Who the hell wants to buy an expensive, obsidian overlord dominating their living room? And
  • "Denies", or "rejects", not "refutes". Slashdot: even the headlines suck.
    • You do realize that "Denies" and "Rejects" have different meanings than the word "Refutes" right? Fail...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Chinju ( 662523 )
        Well, if he thought they had the same meaning, he wouldn't have proposed the switch, would he?

  • We still have lines... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Friday March 30, 2007 @05:35PM (#18549623) Homepage
    I work in retail, in the electronics dept, we get at least 10 calls a day and as many people stopping in asking about the wii. We get shipments in randomly and sporadically. We got 12 in on tuesday and sold the 4 we could in less than an hour. The other 8 we had to hold because our weekly flyer promised a minimum of 8 per store on sunday. So this week i've told at least 50 people that if they want one of those 8 Wiis to be at the store when we open at 7 on sunday. Its like that every 3 weeks or so when the Wii gets advertised, people lining up at 5 in the morning. Meanwhile we have more than a dozen PS3s upstairs that we cant sell. We had less, but then people returned some...

    I'm personally very happy with my Wii, got it at launch, only had to wait in line about 10 hours, and that was lots of fun, everybody had DS' and booze. Only my second console and the first one i've bought new. Im somewhat dissapointed with the lineup so far, but im looking forward to super paper mario and mario party 8 (as well as SSBB and Metroid), and im sure it will get better. I have spent quite a bit on virtual console game, and those are keeping me occupied. Since i never owned any of those systems, its not a bad deal for me.

    I am considering maybe getting a 360 though, mostly because i know as much fun as the wii is, we're not gonna see games like Gears of War, Lost Planet, Crackdown, GRAW2, etc on it (not to mention Fable 2, KotOR 3 etc). I was considering getting a PS2 for a while, but i hate sony with a passion and Guitar Hero is coming out for 360 next week, so theres not much need now. The only thing off the top of my head that i still want to play on PS2 is katamari.
  • I know this is blatantly obvious to anyone who stops to think about it, but Nintendo is trying to refute the charge that the shortage is part of a ploy on their part to hold back existing units until a later date. They are not trying to refute that there is an actual shortage of units. The linked article has a much clearer title, "Nintendo Rejects Wii Shortage Plot." Both because of the "plot" bit and because "Refutes" indicates that Nintendo has provided some kind of proof (which would be difficult to do w

  • ...Wii shortages are due to demand. Nintendo's George Harrison told Next-Gen.biz in a phone interview that "That's not at all the case. We have worldwide territories that are all competing over the available production.

    What's the contradiction here? One side says "there's too much demand" and the other side says "there's not enough supply for demand". I think both "sides" here agree that "there is not enough supply to meet demand".

    It if were Nintendo, I'd also intentionally keep supplies limited. As we'v

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by miro f ( 944325 )
      the contradiction (which isn't clear in TFSummary) is that the supply was intentionally kept back. That is what GameSpot is accusing and Nintendo is denying.

    • It if were Nintendo, I'd also intentionally keep supplies limited. As we've seen, consumers who hear "Wiis are scarce" turn into the knuckleheads who will wait in line, and more importantly, pay premium prices for every Wii that dribbles out.

      What you suggest Nintendo do defies all financial logic (short of the twisted kind).
      They are in a very short period of time before the next price-drop amongst their competitors occurs. Sony has already dropped the price of the PS3 in Japan. With the introduction o

  • 6 million is dogging it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kinglink ( 195330 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @07:42PM (#18551053)
    They have sold 6 million units. All my local stores have regular shipments. I haven't seen any still because they just go too fast. That's not exactly bad numbers, it's just higher then expected demand.

    In 5 monthes they sold more than half what the 360 sold in a year with constant shipments. I'm sure Nintendo is just holding back production, because they don't need the money right?

    Let's just look at this, Nintendo is going to ship as many units as they can, they arn't holding it back. They might not be forcing their employees to work overtime just to ship an extra 10 percent of units. 6 million units is an amazing number and they still constantly sell out.

    Might they hold back a couple in the last couple weeks? Maybe. But I don't think they have been since January it's gotten easier to find and there's not as many news stories about it, but I still don't see them laying around for days, weeks, monthes at a time.

    Let's look at the other side. Sony. Sony had a massive launch people waited for days out in the cold and almost killed themselves to get a PS3. They shipped less than they promised (and around half what the wii shipped the first day) and saturated the market. At this point it's completely saturated PS3s are laying around on the shelves and Sony is claiming "victory" any way they can. The European Ps3 launches were ok in that everyone got a Ps3, but how could you not sell out? The playstation 3 is shipping out 6 million units this month. The Early reports are a third of them have been sold. It'll probably hit a half because of a European launch. And we get weekly reports of "why" they arn't selling so fast because they are successful at getting that many units out there.

    The 360 also had some early shipment problems. Systems did appear on the shelves in the next couple months but even then neither system had half the numbers the Wii has.

    I think Gamestop is feeling the fact that people WANT the wii, and Nintendo has only alloted them so many. Best buy and Walmart can get 20+ systems in a single shipment, Gamestop is lucky to hit double digits per store in most shipments. This happened at launch and still happens now. Gamestop just doesn't get as many units (per store) as the other chains, even though their focus is only on game products, that would piss me off too, so methinks this is a case of sour grapes and the delicious Wiine. (sorry, but at least I didn't go with "whine".)
    • We're seeing what a "2nd console" strategy looks like (It's definitely working)... Nintendo didn't try to out-polygon or out-horsepower the other two... the sales reflect that at the price point of $250 (less than the last gen PS2 and Xbox launch price by $50) they can sell tons to younger audiences, a 2nd console to a gamer with a 360 or PS3, and to people who just don't game intently. :) Let's face it, $400 to $600 for a console is moving beyond the "accessible to everyone" strategy and towards the "compu
  • Hmmm. I don't know much about how long it takes to manufacture these things, but I wonder if the last few consoles and their unremarkable sales figures has made them cautious. Up until Christmas the buzz was all around PS3 until everybody saw how great the Wii is. Now they're probably scrambling to fill orders.
  • I will believe there's not a shortage when I can go to Amazon.com and buy a Wii at MSRP from a mass-market (r)etailer like Amazon themselves or Target, etc (not an individual seller at a higher price).

    Just checked.... you can't (at least in the US).

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