It was hard to obtain Nintendo's Wii in 2006, but even now it is hard to come across a Nintendo Wii in a retail store. There's still a crazy demand and a shortage of hardware. Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime told Wired.com in an interview that "We are passionately upset about the lack of product relative to demand."
He doesn't seem to be too upset about the bragging rights. According to the Regginator, the average Wii system on a store shelf in the United States only sits there for an hour before being purchased. I don't doubt that at all. But I wonder where the root of the problem really lies: in supply or in customer demand.
Fils-Aime says that production is controlled by Nintendo's global headquarters in Japan, and apparently the North American Nintendo team has been pushing for more systems for the US.
According to TGdaily, of the 1.8 million Wii units rolled out per month, North America gets around 720,000.
What do you think of this one hour shelf life claim? And where do you think the Wii supply problem stems from?
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
10:49 AM on 04.28.2008
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Stupid scaremongering!
There's no reason that a year and a half after being launched they shouldn't be producing more systems through economies of scale and be able to meet demand. It's a corporate crock of shit.
certainly not me.
Then build more factories asshole. Don't act like you don't have the money for it.
I know a few people that bought wii's off of ebay, and the receipt that came with it had wal-mart manager's discounts taken off.
I see managers just taking the stock before it hits shelf and selling it for profits.
luckily that trend on ebay and amazon is slowly going down in price.
If it's an "intentional shortage to help spike demand" then why are other country's not having the same shortages?
I just picked up my FIFTH Wii yesterday when I went to pick up "Mario Kart Wii". (No, I'm not keeping the latest Wii, but I'm not being an asshole and selling it on eBay for a 50% premium either.) Of the five, I've kept two for myself; the rest have been resold for exactly what I paid to friends who have been looking for one.
So far, all of the Wiis that I've purchased have been at stores that do not get a lot of foot traffic and were purchased during odd times of the day -- three times during lunch, and the last two at the store's opening on Sunday morning (when most people in this heavily religious area are at church). In the past year, this was the SEVENTH time that a Wii was available for me to purchase.
The Wiis are out there, folks. It might mean that you'll have to drive outside of your area, and it might mean that you'll have to go at unusual times of the day; but if you really want one, that's what you have to do.
At this rate, I should become some kind of Wii middle-man for Destructoid users -- except for qwerty and slapme7times. F*ck you two.
The Best Buy that I was at yesterday had over 50 available when the doors opened.
Also, passionately upset = squeaking while rolling in da money
Yeah, that's what people though a year ago. {roll eyes}
And I'm not even going to comment out your pathetic "piece of crap system" statement because it's clear that you know not of which you speak. Or else you're one of those shallow XB360/PS3 fanboys who think that it's all about the CPUs, gigahertz, and gigaflops -- with gameplay thrown in as an afterthought.
I'll admit that the 360 and PS3 both have their problems, but they'll be around long after the Wii.
Not that the Wii has a ton of stellar titles, but I personally think the Wii games look just fine next to my 360 1080p titles. It's not the size of your pixel, it's how you color it. Am I right fellahs?
Which is why every Wii title I've seen so far does not use anti-aliasing, and the system has crap for texture memory.
SD graphics in 2007 I can tolerate, but doing crappy SD without anti-aliasing is ridiculous. I saw a Wii plugged into an HDTV and the image hurt my eyes because of all the moire and subsample flickering. It didn't look underpowered -- it actually looked bad.
Apparently, that's what people want, too.