Best Buy rumored to be hoarding Wiis for holiday push

It's hard to say if this rumor is true, but it's not behavior that Best Buy has avoided in the past. In fact, we vividly remember this exact same scenario happening in late 2006 -- the difference? That was the Wii's launch year. This is two years later. Two. Years. Later. Oh, and it's totally a futile effort, considering that Wally World sold through "tens of thousands" in about four milliseconds. Seriously people, there's a new Elmo to wage holiday war on, you have no business scrapping for a Wii 25 months after it hit US shores.*

[Via NintendoWiiFanboy]

*Image above is assumed to be Photoshopped, as we cannot find a single human to confirm ever seeing that many Wii consoles for sale in one location.

[james @ Dec 10th 2008 5:20PM]

the best buy in reston, va looked exactly like this two weeks ago.

[JedixJarf @ Dec 10th 2008 5:41PM]

This is exactly the way the bestbuy in Bakersfield CA looks right now. We have plenty of wii's over here :)

[Thats What He Said @ Dec 10th 2008 5:45PM]

yeah, well you guys have Ebola there
read The Hot Zone by Richard Preston an you'll get it

[Chuckles McGee @ Dec 10th 2008 5:54PM]

@That's What He Said

If you have to tell people to read a book to get your reference, it really isn't a good reference at all.

[Flashpoint @ Dec 10th 2008 5:55PM]

BEST BUY HAS TO HURRY AND SELL THESE !

There are so many NES, SNES, turbographyx 16, Neo Geo and other 1980's - 90's games that need to be played !


Oh yeah...and Wii has a list of new releases of A+ worthy titles right?

[mattmcheng @ Dec 10th 2008 6:05PM]

best buy over in valencia, CA looked like that on black friday :P

[ILIKEMYJOB @ Dec 10th 2008 6:10PM]

I work at Best Buy in Minnesota and can confirm that my store is holding about 90 Wiis for this and other upcoming weekends.

[Mike @ Dec 10th 2008 6:15PM]

Best Buy in Robinson, PA has a back room that looks like this....

yet they are CONSTANTLY sold out of Mario Kart.

Methinks they're hoarding that too O_O

[aj_robins @ Dec 10th 2008 6:17PM]

Yeah, a week before Thanksgiving, my local BB (Northern California) had a stack like that. It was out on the floor, and people were buying them.

[alex @ Dec 10th 2008 8:05PM]

Echoing the comments of others here about their store, but the BB @ Northgate in Seattle looked even more badass than this a couple weeks ago, just before black friday. It was crazy, there was almost no room in the aisles.

[Fyrewerx @ Dec 10th 2008 9:12PM]

Exactly how it looked two weeks ago at Waterford Lakes Best Buy in Orlando, FL

[RyanTV @ Dec 10th 2008 9:14PM]

at a few of the best buys here in south florida they had several pallets of wiis sitting out. I've seen overflowing pallets at costco as well. I don't see an issue with being able to find them for the holidays nor a reason to horde them.

[Dale @ Dec 10th 2008 10:24PM]

I saw a stack that big in a Best Buy at Clarke and Diversey here in Chicago.

[AJ in the East Bay @ Dec 10th 2008 11:55PM]

Best Buy in Emeryville CA had a pallet like that one about a month ago. I don't know if it still looks the same because of Black Friday and everything...

[Austin @ Dec 12th 2008 8:30PM]

The Best Buy here, in the middle of Nowhere, hell of a bad state and City: Wichita, Kansas has at least that many, and the Sony Piece of Shit 3 next to them.

[andyg8180 @ Dec 11th 2008 8:56AM]

ex-employee... This is nothing new... They do this so they can get a line out the door and have "launch parties" to sell off as many accessories as possible... They make jack on the wii... It's the accessories they make the money on...

[Eric B. @ Dec 10th 2008 5:21PM]

People still want Wii's? Damn you micrsoft! Leading parents to the worst of the 3 consoles! Xbox being #1 of course

[Sean U @ Dec 10th 2008 5:31PM]

Yea totally... I'm on my 4th sucky Wii now... the red ring just keeps coming back. Oh wait...

[James @ Dec 10th 2008 5:58PM]

Well throughout all the problems with the xbox 360 at least we know Microsoft is willing to fix their faulty consoles and not try and blame their customers for the problems. I am actually pleased with how Microsoft handled this situation. I just hope they learn from this and the build quality on their next gen machine is much better from the start.

[The Joker @ Dec 10th 2008 6:02PM]

Did you just say sucky Wii? Was some kind of Freudian slip?

[tpadekar @ Dec 10th 2008 6:09PM]

umm... Joker, it's called sarcasm....

[Zelatio @ Dec 10th 2008 6:37PM]

He didn't get it, lolz. Oh Freud, you big pervert....

[The Joker @ Dec 10th 2008 6:54PM]

"... I'm on my 4th sucky Wii now..."

There you go, bragging again.

[tha-don @ Dec 10th 2008 9:29PM]

@joker

hahahaha, i literally almost spit orange juice all over my coffee table. then again, i still laugh whenever i see the word cumulative abbreviated....

[kjb434 @ Dec 10th 2008 5:21PM]

I don't know why they are hoarding. They can charge 50% more for them, put them all out, and still sell them out.

[japroach @ Dec 10th 2008 9:38PM]

Hoarding them means they will have them available when people are doing christmas shopping. Which means people will go to their store and (most likely), buy a bunch of other crap as well.

Its like bait and switch, but without the switch.

[dvsbstrd @ Dec 10th 2008 5:22PM]

There are, what, like, 15 million Wiis that have been sold?

How many of those are sitting in a closet, collecting dust?

[TheFlamingoKing @ Dec 11th 2008 3:07PM]

As opposed to the other systems sitting on a store shelf, collecting dust, I think that Nintendo won't care one bit on their way to the bank.

[TJ @ Dec 10th 2008 5:29PM]

World of Goo has given me reason to dust off the Wii. Wonderful game, especially at $15. Then I realized Mario Kart was still sitting in the disc drive, so I started that up. When putting it away, I remembered I've got Smash Bros to play, and now I'm jonsing for a second playthrough of Twilight Princess.

Oooh, just remembered the fun that Wii Boxing was....

[EtherGnat @ Dec 10th 2008 5:51PM]

40 million Wiis have been sold, and anybody that has one sitting in their closet collecting dust is an idiot because even used they're still going for $200+ on eBay. A lot of people like their Wiis--get over it.

[dvsbstrd @ Dec 10th 2008 8:56PM]

Jesus Christ, I was asking an honest question. I'm indifferent about the Wii, but I know a lot of people with them that never play them.

[UKTrojan @ Dec 11th 2008 6:11PM]

Fair enough comment dvsbstrd. I'd been sticking to my 360 and PS3 and have just turned my Wii on for the first time in over 6 months (to play Animal Crossing with my wife). It doesn't mean I love it any less though.

[lcscape @ Dec 10th 2008 5:23PM]

eww.. who's going to end up with the sloppy party bottoms?

[Tyler @ Dec 10th 2008 5:23PM]

I know my store has quite a few of them held for Sunday. And Wii Fits too. If you want one check your sunday ads...

[Burgundy @ Dec 10th 2008 5:27PM]

That's one damn impressive PhotoShop job if it is a fake....

[matthew @ Dec 10th 2008 5:31PM]

yeah, i was thinking the same thing. the boxes are all bent differently and dented and the perspctive looks right.

[El Taco @ Dec 10th 2008 5:50PM]

Ya seriously. Isn't is more likely that the boxes are just empty boxes for display purposes?

[James @ Dec 10th 2008 6:04PM]

I went to best buy the other day and they had a stack probably about 1/4 the size so the prospect of seeing this amount isnt surprising at all to me. And yes the consoles are in the boxes. They also had a pretty big stack of PS3's that i saw.

[Aman B. @ Dec 10th 2008 7:17PM]

I have at the Best Buy in San Francisco,Ca

[Game_playa @ Dec 10th 2008 5:28PM]

I hope none of these sell and they get fucked...LOL

[loocas @ Dec 10th 2008 6:38PM]

:D:D:D

Man, I don't know why you got low ranked, but your comment totally cracked me up here. I'm trying to hold my tears from laughter actually :D

One little green + for you...

Thank you!

[dcoaster @ Dec 10th 2008 8:28PM]

That would be funny if Best Buy was holding out and ended up selling none of them.... haha

[rlc:tk @ Dec 10th 2008 5:29PM]

check the toys r us in times square... when I was there in Aug. their showoff stack of wiis was easily 3x this, with an armed (taser) security guard.

[deeznuts @ Dec 10th 2008 6:15PM]

Don't tase me bro!

[Totalfixation @ Dec 10th 2008 5:29PM]

I hope those bottom boxes are ok. they look like they are getting crashed.

[JL @ Dec 10th 2008 5:29PM]

"Hoarding," as in can't sell any Wiis because no one can afford to splurge on such excessive, superfluous Christmas gifts anymore? I jest, of course. We all know that Wiis would sell out forever and in unlimited quantities, recessions be damned.

[DavidW @ Dec 11th 2008 2:28AM]

Working for Best Buy, I can say consoles are actually doing BETTER. What people are tending to do is buy a large item, i.e. wii, 360 as a family purchase that everyone can enjoy, as opposed to smaller items for individual family members.

and in relation to the picture...we actually had a stack of wiis...maybe 150 or so that lasted for at least a week...though that was before the christmas rush started, so I doubt they would last anywhere near that long now.

[collin @ Dec 10th 2008 5:30PM]

i work at a store in wisconsin and i've seen shipments of 125+ coming in fairly regularly. no wii fits, but plenty of wiis.

[Sublimewulf @ Dec 10th 2008 6:08PM]

LOL, I'm Caullen, and i work at a store in wisconsin too! but we dont sell Wiis :p only general (non-tech) merchandise and food

[KenC @ Dec 10th 2008 5:30PM]

I still call shenanigans... It's all supply and demand. Nintendo knows people like the console and would want one (general public) Bottleneck the supply demand may go up..... At least in the video game console wars this tends to be how it works. Seriously what on the Wii (not saying there isn't anything but) warrents that 10,000 Wii's from Wally world are gone in seconds?

I know of nothing... What game is sold out everywhere then maybe I can believe it then, But I seriously don't think there is.