Nintendo promises Wii stock boost, says they'll still sell out
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted September 16th 2007 2:15PM
posted September 16th 2007 2:15PM
Reggie Fils-Aime over at Nintendo has promised an "unprecedented" Wii supply boost for North America over the holiday season -- unfortunately, it's only "unprecedented" because Nintendo has never been able to keep up with demand. Doubly unfortunate for potential Wii purchasers, this extra supply will probably not meet demand over the holiday season period. Sounds like business as usual then: people wanting Wiis, but with Nintendo shipping just enough to be perpetually sold out. Marketing points 
I'm guessing the "new" supplier they brought online earlier in the year has been diverting production and storing it in warehouses waiting for a Christmas rush. That's how they can promise an unprecedented surge in supply. It makes since, there are a lot of Christmas buyers (ie. parents and grandparents) who may buy Jimmy or Timmy a 360 or PS3 if they can't find a Wii. Losing Christmas sales is more costly than losing sales in the middle of the year.
The whole problem is not with Nintendo its company's hording them for weekend sales, I see it at work all the time we get tons of them in and corporate wont let us sell them till the ad comes out on Sunday and then when it does we sell out really fast because people are still scalping them. Keep looking on Sundays because most stores are getting them. Heck a store in my area got 220 last week for a weekend sale and just sold out yesterday.
IDK... in Ft.Lauderdal where i am.. you have to pray before you go try and find a wii to buy... and even if you do, you have to buy it at that moment, or else it'll be sold out if your run to the bank and back... i got mine at a gamestop in coral springs mall... i had to have me sister tell the lady to hold it for her, and my sister was forced to stay in the store and wait till i drove about 20min so i could buy the wii, and she ended up being late for her work...
all you guys saying "artificial supply" must of forgotten that Nintendo was not the power house they use to be coming out the wii. they became the niche market game system and was not expected to sell well. once you set up production capacities is takes a while, even a few years to fix. they have to redo part supply contracts and everything.
I work at best buy and last night we got a drop shipment of 133. i hope it keeps up, i really am tired of having customers angry at me.
I find people who say stupid things like, "Nintendo is letting the consumer down! REVOLT!" and such, very, very moronic.
Seriously, look at the sales of the Wii. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they've been selling a shit load of consoles in a short period of time. Nintendo is doing what they can to keep up with demand, even if it's not 'satisfactory' to some people.
How would Nintendo have even guessed about the popularity? The Gamecube didn't exactly shine.
I still haven't seen them in any stores in New York. I have been to the Broadway/Houston BestBuy over 50 times, and they are always sold out... I am not going to pay an extra $100 for them online - that is ridiculous. I have seen plenty of them in France, Italy and Denmark though - but never one single one in New York... The funny thing is that the longer I wait the less I feel like getting one, it just is old news after 6 months..
They're still being sold out??
This "artifical rarity" is a marketing term from either Microsoft or more likely Sony. I've been a vender in a Wal-Mart for three months now. The Wal-Mart I work in gets about 12 Wiis in every 2-2 1/2 weeks. Sometimes they fly off the shelf, sometimes they sit there half a week. There is no supply shortage as far a making the system, the demand is still much larger than what Nintendo can supply.
You must work at a rare wallmart. The 3 that are in driving distance have not had ANY Wii's in 2 months, and they all guess that they may get a shipment sometime in October... But they told me not to bet on it...
ya... actually this would have no effect on customer satisfaction since if some1 is a customer, they would already have a wii...
Man I haven't touched my Wii in months. Games just doesn't appeal to me. How about a Dvd player and browser that can play other streaming movie and audio sites other than youtube to peak my interest! Or I'll just wait for 360 and play games that interest me.
I got one in january, played the heck out of it for a month, havent turned it on for more than 10 mins a month. will soon be listing on ebay
I was at my Best Buy on a Sunday afternoon yesterday, and for the first time since the Wii's launch (I stood in line), I saw two on the shelf under BB's new Wii demo displays they are doing in select stores. People still line up in the electronics dept. of my WAL*MART at insane hours of the day to try and get the 3-15 Wiis they get in there every two weeks or so. I just can't understand the demand for it, since honestly, there are only a handful of "must have" titles and a lot of filler games of bad movie licenses or poor ports of PS2 games.
Ok, If you live near NYC, there's a simple way to get a Wii. Just go to the Nintendo World Store in Manhattan, I just picked one up there a couple of days ago, they had at least 20-30 in stock. The guy behind the counter told me that they always have them. No waiting in line, same old retail price, no price gouging.
Anyones want to buy mine? Wii graphic suck.
Maybe if the Target I worked at (electronics) received more than 4 systems every 2.5 weeks I would say that they were trying to meet demand. Nintendo has ALWAYS done this. They always cut short on supply to make demand seem higher than it is.
Nintendo doesn't make a high margin on the systems themselves, they make most of their $$ off the software. So it doesn't make sense to horde systems, it makes sense for them to sell as many systems as possible so they can sell more software.
I was lucky to find one locally (Oklahoma City) back in early January at Target. I was signed up on all these different Wii tracking sites and even had 2 of them sending me immediate emails and text messages to my phone once anybody locally received them in stock.
I get a text message saying the Target across the street from my work received a shipment. I called to verify, the guy said they just put 4 on the shelf not even 5 minutes ago and there's only 3 left. By the time I got there 10 minutes later, I was there just in time to get the last one as somebody walked up as I was paying for it and asked the cashier if there were any left.
That was the last time I've seen a Wii on the shelf at any store I've gone to, and I go shopping a lot and look every single time I go.
We were shopping at Walmart last week and heard over the speakers that they had a few Wii's in stock, bought one and everyone in my family absolutely loves it. It was great timing sine we had no plans to get to a store at the crack of dawn for a ticket to buy one.
Can someone tell me why the price of the Wii is not $350, with demand like this?
It would have worked out better for everyone.
The only reason I was able to get one is because I worked at Toys R Us. We would get them on Thursday and they were available for sale the following Sunday so the store manager would hold one for us. As far as I can remember they would sell out in only 5 hours every time.
Geeze. It's too difficult to find a wii anywhere except eBay. Oh well I may need to go to a site like http://wiiinstock.weebly.com and pay the premium.
I used to tools at http://www.wii-store.com/blog and scored a Wii for $300. It takes good luck though, the competition is getting stiff.