We know that Nintendo's Wii is selling well, but how much better would they have fared if console supplies were plentiful?

There's no way to know for sure, but  James Lin, senior analyst at the MDB Capital Group, tells the New York Times that Nintendo may have missed out on over a billion dollars in sales. What's worse is that this figure does not include related software sales.

“It’s staggering,” said James Lin, referring to this holiday season. “They could easily sell double what they’re selling.”

Nintendo says that they've done no wrong, blaming shortages on scheduling problems and disk drive shortages.

“We don’t feel like we’ve made any mistakes,” said George Harrison, senior vice president for marketing at Nintendo of America. “It’s a good problem to have.”

Harrison does admit to a possible downside. “We do worry about not satisfying consumers and that they will drift to a competitor’s system.”

I don't know about a drift factor; I think that families and casual gamers want a Wii, and they won't settle for a Xbox 360 or PS3 instead. One thing's for sure: eBay resellers and console scalpers are making some of Nintendo's lost money for themselves.