During today's short-notice Nintendo group phone interview, Reggie Fils-Aime announced a Wii 'rain check' program partnership with specialty retailer GameStop.
On December 20 and 21, consumers willing to give up the ghost and admit to their children that Santa isn't real will have the opportunity to pick up a "rain check" for a Wii console. Paying in full will guarantee a console for pick-up sometime in January, with the caveat that the console must be picked up by January 29. While Reggie wasn't able to talk about an exact number, he's confident that there will be plenty of rain checks to go around.
"[GameStop] have many tens of thousands of rain checks available across their roughly 3,000 points of distribution," he says. "So we expect this to be a very strong program, and we expect this to be a great way for consumers who desperately want a Wii to be able to have something -- their certificate -- that guarantees their family that they'll be able to get a system in January."
For those not willing to wait and are prepared to continue the hunt, Reggie also says that system will be available this weekend, with six national retailers actively promoting the availability in circulars (Best Buy, K-Mart, Sears, Target, Toys 'R' Us, and Circuit City). He also mentions Wal-Mart as a place frustrated gift givers might want to stalk -- they're said to be pushing out "massive amounts" of Wii systems all week long.
I'll be reviewing my call notes shortly in an attempt to pull out some more gems, but don't get your hopes up -- the call was mainly focused on Wii availability (it's hard to get) and Wii production (they're trying, they couldn't have anticipated demand, and so forth). We already knew that, right?
Contest:
11:09 AM on 12.14.2007
| 
needs to be on my black head.
anyone in NYC keep checking with virgin megastore in union square, they always get in big shipments and its not a place most people look for games. which is weird. Their games section is 2x the size of best buy
Now if we see a lot of systems all of a sudden hit I can't help but think maybe they were holding back just a little. You have the holiday and the closer it gets the more desperate buyers get. Don't get me wrong there is demand for the system is real but if you have stock that you are pretty comfortable will sell out why not direct the flow to your advantage amplify the hype and keep numbers consistently growing on the books.
I've been calling every day to see if any stores have Wiis. None ever have any. This is supposed to be my little brother's Christmas gift. If I can't get one, I'll just get an XBOX 360 Arcade. I have an extra 20 GB HDD so I'll just throw hand him that too. I'm not going to beg you beg you for your damn console.
I'm not going to do anything outside of going into a store to buy one. I'm not your little bitch ass Nintendo fanboy who rebuys the same Zelda game. The same douche bag who gets mad at reviewers after their precious Nintedo game didn't get a 10. This one of very few situations where you lost a sale because you can't be a real company and have the proper amount of consoles out in stores. Hopefully people will do the same. Overhyped, overpriced crap...
Ura
No joke.