Nintendo says Wii will remain in short supply

Nintendo expects its popular Wii game machine will continue to be in short supply, while Sony said it is seeing increased PlayStation 3 sales after announcing a price cut.
The New York Times

The story "Nintendo says Wii will remain in short supply" published July 11, 2007 at 9:35 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[techned]

This is going to hurt Nintendo

The Wii being in short supply from X-mas to April was good for Nintendo, because it gave Nintendo and its new console something to brag about to both the public and the industry itself - that Nintendo was back.
But now the Wii shortages has pretty much outlived its usefulness.
Despite having the lowest price in the console wars, Wii also the least advanced gaming console, especially in graphics and storage capacity.
Wii plays to the casual gamer base very well but Nintendo still needs to pay attention to those who want more than a casual experience.

Xbox is moving into casual/kid games and has licensed Disney for their new movie download.
PS3 has lowered it price and is starting to seriously compete software wise, now that it has announced some serious exclusive content.

I liked the Nintendo conference a lot and look forward to Mario and Sonic. The Fit game I am very interested in, since I have no money or time for a gym. But I have to admit I can't wait to see Dreams again, this time using Wii's control scheme.

But the shortage problem has to be remedied before this X-mas or its going to hurt Nintendo a lot, because the competition also looks good too despite the price.

[Anonymous Hero]

They ARE making as much as they can.

It's not a matter of ramping up their manufacturing. They already have. Nintendo is now using 2 additional suppliers and making units as fast as they can. It's just that the demand for the Wii is pretty much unprecedented in the history of video game consoles. I didn't see any Wii systems in stock anywhere in Tokyo, and here in the U.S. as soon as a shipment arrives to Circuit City or Toys R Us, everyone just goes crazy and forms a gigantic line and it sells out within minutes.

Don't confuse this with Sony's PS2 tricks in 2001, when PS2 being "sold out" was due to low shipments which Sony spun as high demand. The Wii is sold out for real--we're talking 9 million machines in about half a year on the market. Retailers are fighting for stock, and all 3 regions (Americas, Japan and Others) sell out as soon as a new shipment arrives.

NCL's main job now is to allocate a "fair" number of units to each market and each big retailer so that no one feels left out, but the truth is, they could ship them all to Amazon.com/Amazon.jp and it would still sell out continuously.

[E Petey]

Not a good idea, nintendo

I will give you one holiday season where demand and supply were not judged well.

Giving you another year and still not getting things fixed? This is blatant milking of a story. Any company of Nintendo's size can fix problems in a supply chain with this much advanced notice.....

"Oh gee, look - no one can get their hands on this stuff - even though we are trying our 'best'" .... right

Shame on them.

[samwise_gamgees]

Nintendo is not pushing it's advantage

I agree that nintendo should have been able to increase it's total number of produceable unit of the Wii by now -- but nintendo seems to think that a shortage of units will keep people buying in a frenzy but i have to disagree,i think nintendo needs to push it's advantage and sell as many units as it can as fast as it can while it can because the tides of success can change just as fast to bad as it did good.
Case in point - last year everyone was saying that the Wii was going to be a big loser and the PS3 was going to destroy them all,but what happened wa just the opposite - nintendo has been the big winner so far and why did that come about?.
It happened because sony dropped the ball and did not have enough units to meet the early demand and had no extra units to restock the retail outlets selling the PS3 giving nintendo the chance to get into more homes then it might have otherwise,but as most of us know there seems to be no growth in the available number of Wiis in stores now than there was in january 2007.
By this time nintendo should have been able to double the number of Wiis being produced on a monthly basis and there by ending the shortage of wiis in stores,but that does not seem to be the case but with sony now taking more drastic steps to sell more PS3 maye now nintendo will take off the gloves and bloody a few noses to finally take back it's crown that sony took away years ago.
We can always hope.

[Fil0403]

What advantage? LOL

"We" as in 12-year-old-boys-who-don't-like-online-gameplay-or-Halo-3-or-GTA-IV kids, I guess.

[Fil0403]

Nintendo kills Wii

Uh-oh, babies are gonna cry when they know their little toy is in short supply, LOL.