A number of analysts suggest that Nintendo's inability to meet Wii demand is set to cost the platform holder in excess of $1 billion this holiday, while Nintendo's marketing VP admits supply shortages are a "worry".
It's no secret that Nintendo is failing to adequately stock retail channels with enough Wii units despite pumping out 1.8 million systems on a monthly basis, but as the New York Times reports, shortages mean Nintendo is set to lose more than just face.
While Nintendo's Wii has been the bestselling home console in the US every month this year, except during September when a Halo 3-driven Xbox 360 narrowly edged it out, the Kyoto-based company is failing to fully capitalize on the system's popularity.
Nintendo sold 981,000 Wii units in the US during November according to the NPD Group, but according to James Lin, senior analyst at the MDB Capital Group in Santa Monica, Calif., "they could easily sell double what they're selling." Along with other industry analysts and retailers, Lin believes Nintendo could be set to lose out on more than $1billion this holiday, not including missed revenue opportunies from associated software sales that won't materialize.
While Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing says he doesn't believe Nintendo's "made any mistakes" when it comes to gauging demand, he admits consumers may turn their heads towards other systems if they can't get hold of a Wii.
"We do worry about not satisfying consumers and that they will drift to a competitor's system," George Harrison said.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer is one interested observer who's pleased with the Wii shortages. "I'm happy that the Wii seems to be running out of hardware," he noted earlier this week. During November Sony's PS3 outsold the Wii in Japan over a four week period for the first time since the systems launched late last year.
As previously reported, Nintendo shares have dropped by eight percent since November, having risen five-fold during the two years prior. Wii shortages and a resurgent PS3 are two factors that leave the immediate future of Nintendo's stock hanging in the balance.
I suppose you could call this "nintendo being conservative", but they chose the absolute wrong time to be.
I don't blame them though, with what happened to the gamecube.
Your right. It makes absolute sense for them to have been cautious. Surely they could make this money back later though, I mean playing other games because you can't find a Wii won't change the fact it has SMG, MP3, Mario Kart(soon) and Smash Bros(soon....hopefully).
I was going to buy a wii, having been hypnotised by SMG, but if they cant get a good amount of consoles to the UK, then dammit I'm going to spend more money and buy a PS3!
Sounds like it has been FAR more popular than even Ninty could have hoped for, so now they're having to play catch-up to supply retail and the UK hopefully.
I'm sure they're pulling out all the stops on the run-up to the incredibly important Christmas period to get as many units out there as even with the Wii's success so far, a potential billion dollars lost revenue is still a lot of brass for them to miss out on!
It is a shame, but remember that this drought is caused by the damn things selling at a rate of knots rather than any lack of effort on Nintendo's part, and a $1 billion loss must be partially or totally compensated for by the huge amount of stock that they are manging to shift.
1.8 million Wii's per Month is alot of Wii's its not Nintendo's fault that it cannot keep ahead of the demand . Everyone I know either wants a Wii or DS, admittedly half of them rarely play games but I don't think this situation is hurting the company but its not helping them either as people are panic buying them, my sister just managed to get two DS's at an obscure Coop store near by last week and my local Blockbuster has 11 Wii's in stock still and the fact that their are still loads of Wii's in Europe suggests to me where Nintendo are failing, so the obvious solution is to sort out each countries allocation properly and make sure the stock goes to the right stores!
Don't know where you're from "Sean" but there's Sh1t loads of them in France, Germany & the less war-torn areas of Europe if you're willing to drive a car!!
Having said that eBay prices have only recently started to resemble normality because of the guaranteed European Nintendo warranty, otherwise ROM!
1.8 million Wii's per Month is alot of Wii's its not Nintendo's fault that it cannot keep ahead of the demand .
Then who's fault would it be? The consumers?
No thats not quite what I meant, ramping up production would is a logistical challenge by anyones standards and would take at least six months to implement and by then demand may have fallen so its no ones fault really!
so the obvious solution is to sort out each countries allocation properly and make sure the stock goes to the right stores!
I dont think its that easy though.
1) It takes months to increase/decrease output at factories and assign them to regions and so on.
2) Fluctuations are often caused by the games released. It would be difficult to assign consoles to regions to match the release of a game. Like Mario Galaxy for instance. Wii sales spiked on release in nearly every region.
Read my post properly I was on about Nintendo's allocations that have already been made and how they could ship more units to the more needy countries like the UK and the US than wasting them on continental Europe where Wii's can be bought with ease!
Nintendo have been "hyper" sensitive about over producing the Wii after the huge losses associated with the "Cube's" optimism, so yes they've been caught on the hop but you'd be a fool if you think a price increase will happen anytime soon, with the lack of availability and the price-cuts of superior machines, the lack of supply (especially to the UK market) could be a major shot in the foot over the vital Christmas period!!
Nintendo could make more Wii's if they wanted to in their 2 factories, but, they would have to stop making DS and with them selling even more than the Wii, that again would be a stupid move, or they could bite the bullet and build a new factory, have it come online next year and then watch as demand for DS and Wii drop right down to a new DS comes and HD Wii is made.
Nintendo are caughty between a hardplace and a rock.
Am I the only person to ask "What shortages?"? Looking for a present for my mum and dad at lunch one day last week, there were flipcharts outside anouncing the wii was now back in stock in Game, Zavvi (Virgin megastore's stupid new name), HMV etc.
If you had walked past those shops an hour later they probably would've gone.
This article is selective reporting once again. Nintendo cant keep up with demand and is selling more consoles than anyone by a very large margin, and its pointed out as a BAD thing.
A little bit further down the list theres an article praising the PS3 for basically being the worst selling console out of the three. It reports that PS3 sales have quadrupled!! Yipee!! Then a bit further in the article you find out its still behind the DS, Wii, 360 and PS2!!
The reporting on this site is completley unobjective.
Basically it seems that if this article was relating to the PS3 then the reporter would be jumping around screaming, 'ITS SOLD OUT!!! THEY CANT MAKE ENOUGH!! BRILLIANT!!'
And if the PS3 article was relating to the Wii it would say something like, 'despite small growth spurt, wii still lags behind in console war'.
i think most true gamers will already have decided if they want a wii or not and will have theirs by now.the only people missing out on this toy/gimmick (oops) are the non gamers who also have george foreman grills and waffle irons collecting dust in their cupboards, so dont worry.
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