Nintendo shrugs off recession talk with crazy Wii sales

1:09 PM on 12.08.2008   |   Dale North

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For Black Friday week, Nintendo sold about 800,000 Wii consoles and about the same number of DS systems. That's more than double the 350,000 sold this time last year.

“I see no negative signs so far,” Iwata, 49, said in an interview yesterday in Kyoto, Japan, where Nintendo is based. “Until the end of this calendar year, sales will be in line with our expectations.” 

"When the economy is strong, people tend to buy three things from the top of their wish list," he said in an interview with Reuters. "But when things are bad, people often buy only the first thing on their list - Fortunately for us a lot of shoppers put our products at the top of their list." 

I saw shelves go from fully stocked to nearly empty everywhere this past week. I didn't think Nintendo would see this kind of sales again, but most places are sold out now, save for Wal-Mart today. BestBuy.com, CircuitCity.com, and even Walmart.com were out of stock by Friday night. And eBay? Wii are going for almost $350 in some eBay auctions now.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, it seems that they got the hook up on Wiis today. GamesIndustry reports that the online Wal-Mart store has "tens of thousands" of Wii bundles in stock. As of now, they have the console-only unit for $249, a bundle that has an extra set of controllers and a Mario lunchbox for $329 (shown above with terribly misporportioned Nunchuck), and more bundles going all the way up to $458. All list "not available in stores," but all are available now online.