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Is the Wii shortage engineered?

Submitted by Dale on Mon, 11/19/2007 - 12:25am.
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This week, I was at my local Wal-mart, and while there, they announced that they'd just received a shipment of four Wii systems. Once I was ready to check out a few minutes later, only two remained at the service desk, and the store was abuzz with conversations about whether to snatch up one of the remaining pair. 

Nintendo released the Wii a year ago, and the unprecedented shortage remains. Granted, demand remains high for the console with the widest appeal, but does this continuing shortage seem a bit Cheep Cheep (Mario Fish)fishy to you?

If Wii availability had met initial demand early on, then it may not have remained at the top of sales charts for so long. This would hurt Nintendo's stock prices (or at least not help them so much), and the "We'd better get one while we can!" mentality would never have happened.

I don't fault Nintendo for this. Frankly, it's a brilliant marketing move. That said, will future console rollouts learn from this model and create shortages in order to increase demand? While this may be genius from a business perspective, it hurts to consumers who have to buy their Wiis on ebay for inflated prices if they don't happen to stumble on one like we did.

At what point does consumer interest outweigh stockholder interest? 

Nintendo says "Not so"

Submitted by Dale on Wed, 11/28/2007 - 8:53am.

Nintendo has denied suggestions that the shortage is deliberate, so if it's not deliberate, someone in the manufacturing area should face consequences, although I can just imagine the conversation: "You created demand! You're fired!"If it's not deliberate, it sure works well for them.-- DaleTech Talk for Families Cohost

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They're reducing demand

Submitted by Dale on Sun, 12/09/2007 - 1:51pm.

Nintendo has pulled an ad campaign, since there's no point generating more demand for something unavailable.-- DaleTech Talk for Families Cohost

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More shipping

Submitted by Dale on Fri, 12/14/2007 - 10:36pm.

Nintendo is going out of their way to show that they're doing everything they can to get as many Wiis out as possible.

Wii Production Facility Employees at Nintendo's distribution center in North Bend, Wash., prepare thousands of boxes of Wii for shipment to retailers across the country. Nintendo has tripled its distribution workforce to meet consumer demand for the holidays. Nintendo's current production run is 1.8 million Wii systems a month, almost twice what was produced at launch last year. Nintendo set all-time U.S. sales records in November 2007 for both its Wii and Nintendo DS systems. Both systems remain the hottest gifts for the holidays because they have games and software that appeal to every member of the family. 

 

If they really are trying, this whole thing must be very frustrating for them, so while I still wonder, I can't possibly know the truth--very few do. 

--
Dale
Tech Talk for Families Cohost

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Get one by the end of January

Submitted by Dale on Sun, 12/16/2007 - 11:39pm.

Nintendo has officially announced a Raincheck program and guarantees one for you by the end of January. I'm starting to believe them.

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