Wii Shortages Could Last For Months 307
Next Generation is reporting that, apparently, the Wii shortages could continue for some time yet. This is news from Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo's VP of marketing and corporate affairs, speaking to the Game Theory Podcast. Says Kaplan, "There is a lot going on behind the scenes in terms of working on what we are producing and the numbers continue to rise but the product is so very popular that we may see a supply / demand situation last for some time. We are at absolute maximum production and doing everything we can. The number of units that we have been able to produce has far exceeded our hardware production in the past and the production levels of a lot of our competitors but demand continues to be really high."
Re:Local Gamestore (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Local Gamestore (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Local Gamestore (Score:2, Interesting)
If my PS2 were dying, I'd probably buy a new PS2 instead of a PS3.
Re:Snatching Defeat from the Hands of Victory? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nearly 90% of the "too old to play video games" age people I run into (mom, dad, uncles, etc.) say that they're interested in the Wii. My dad admitted that the reason he's interested in it is because the controller is a remote, and he knows how to use a remote. Or at least, he'd never admit that he didn't know how to use a remote.
But any other gaming platform? They wouldn't own up to the fact that they could figure out how to play games on them.
Re:why is the demand so high? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not a big deal... (Score:4, Interesting)
Say what?
Yeah, that sums it up.
Nintendo was committed to a CDRom attachment for the Super NES. The product (known as the "Play Station") almost made it to market. Right up until the CEO of Nintendo read the contract and realized that they had basically sold the farm to Sony. He nixed the deal at the 11th hour. Nintendo then started working with Phillips to create a joint CDRom design.
Nintendo eventually realized that Phillips didn't know their heads from their rears and pulled out. But not before Phillips decided that they had the best thing since sliced bread. Phillips managed to get a license to produce a few Mario and Zelda titles out of the deal, and thus the worst Mario and Zelda games ever imagined were made for the (you guessed it!) Phillips CD-i. Nintendo ended up skipping the CDRom format altogether, and stuck with cartridges until the DVD was available. (GameCube discs are Mini-DVDs recorded at Constant Angular Velocity.)
Re:Not a big deal... (Score:2, Interesting)
So I don't find it odd that you have marketing directors for departments like Hardware production. Consumers have made it a requirement with demand and demand for information they probably don't necessarily HAVE to know.
Re:Not a big deal... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I got mine today (Score:3, Interesting)
I think we will see quite a few FPS style games ported but with bad control schemes before developers get used to a different way of thinking. At the very least, the differences between the Wii and the 360/PS3 versions of games will keep getting larger, and fewer games will be ported across control schemes. The cross-platform franchises will probably split so that studios don't have to keep trying to make the Wii and 360/PS3 games comparable.
The Godfather: Blackhand Edition (Score:3, Interesting)
Godfather on the Wii is awesome. It's easily the most violent game I've ever played.
That may sound somewhat strange, but it's true. While the level of graphic violence can't approach games like Manhunt, the very fact that you're basically doing this with your own hands makes it so tactile and real that you can't help but feel the violence. Knocking somebody to his knees, then picking him up and throwing him through a window just feels so... right... It's scary.
Don't play that game. I think it's dangerous :-)
Wii Shortages in Canada (Score:2, Interesting)