Anyone still believe Wii Won't be ahead of Xbox 360 by the end of the 2007?

[Non Sequor]

I imagine that Nintendo is stockpiling for the holidays because of the following reasons:

1. A lackluster holiday season could cause developers to lose faith in Nintendo. Some developers have only been hesitantly backing Nintendo so far and any signs of weakness may cause some of the fair weather friends to abandon them.

2. If your product is a popular Christmas gift you get a lot of free publicity from the media which will help keep your product in people's minds even after the holidays are over.

3. Some consumers may only consider buying a console at the holidays (e.g. parents buying a console for kids). If you don't sell these people a console this Christmas, you aren't going to get another chance to sell them one until next Christmas. Worse still, they might buy another console instead and stop considering your console.


So it seems to me that holiday sales would be more important than the sales during the rest of the year and that Nintendo would likely be willing to eat the expense of stockpiling Wiis in order to improve their holiday numbers.

Of course, this is just my speculation, but these things seem reasonable enough to me.