Nintendo: Plenty of Wii Consoles This Holiday Season
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Nintendo, Wii, holiday, Season | Themes: Digital Entertainment
Nintendo reports that consumers should have no troubles locating a Wii console this holiday season.
While Nintendo remained tight-lipped on whether consumers would face Wii shortages again this year, the company pressed in a PR released today that the amount of consoles available from October to December would be considerably higher than the same time period last year. Nintendo also reassured consumers that the portable Nintendo DS Lite handheld system would also see a significant rise in available units beginning this month as well.
“We have new games and new experiences for every kind of player this holiday season, and that will certainly fuel increased interest in Wii and Nintendo DS,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “While there’s no way to gauge total demand for our hardware systems, we’re trying to satisfy as many of those players as possible.”
Up until this month, consumers found it difficult to locate the Nintendo Wii system. Retail outlets such as Toys-R-Us, Best buy and Circuit City have had trouble keeping the console in stock; once the shipments arrive, they’re quickly shuffled across the checkout counters. During the 2007 holiday season, the console seemed all but extinct, with retail outlets such as GameStop offering rain checks and promises of a delivery after Christmas. Some critics argued that the unavailability of the console was purely a marketing ploy to raise anticipation and consumer demand.
Currently the Nintendo Wii outsells Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 since its November 2006 launch, with more than 11 million units sold in North America alone. Nintendo recently announced a few new titles hitting store shelves this holiday season including Wii Music, Animal Crossing: City Folk and various Wii Ware titles. The Wii Speak channel, set to hit the console’s dashboard on November 16, will allow Wii owners to speak to up to three other people online using the Wii Speak microphone (sold separately for $29.99).
This week Nintendo also revealed a few upcoming titles from its 2009 lineup including a new Punch-Out!! and Sin & Punishment 2 for Wii, and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Mario & Luigi RPG 3 for Nintendo DS.
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Nintendo doesn't have an excuse this time. With Microsoft adjusting their price for the base XBox 360 to under $200.00, not having the Wii in stock will just allow room for people to purchase the Microsoft alternative.
We can assume Nintendo was playing it safe with the supply issue, but after so many months of being sold out people just get tired of waiting....
Gee, the Wii only came almost 2 years ago and now the 'shortage' has eased. The Wii is cheaper and easier to produce. Not even the xbox 360 and ps3's 'shortages' are as bad as the Wii.
Actually it's understandable that Nintendo couldn't keep up given the demand of the thing. It's the leading console on the market surpassing even the 360 in a very short time. Now I know some of you will argue that Nintendo could keep building factories but it doesn't work that way. Many startup companies have collapsed following that scheme because what happens is the market begins to oversaturate and you never recover the cost of building more production. At this point the market is starting to saturate so demand is falling. This is probably the biggest reason why it is back in stock. I think no one, not even Nintendo thought this platform would be such an amazing success.
While I don't think they faked shortages since it would accomplish nothing except make them lose out on potential sales, it boggles my mind that they couldn't solve the supply issues sooner. I don't care how popular the system was.
Considering the demand and the way Japanese manufacturing uses lean production with extensive in-house quality assurance measure, their shortage can be justified. Every Wii they've built has been guaranteed profit - they are playing it smart. Building more factories to produce decreases profit due to fixed costs. Sure it may help ease the inventory stock, but that's probably not what they were going for.