What happened to sales of the Wii recently this month anyway?

[ZenfoldorVGI]

Groucho said:

Yeah... a month of easy-to-find Wiis at the local stores... must be supply constraints.

Nintendo has to stockpile, because they wouldn't want to be out of Wiis over the Holidays... again. They want some spares on the shelves then, and to make money later, rather than sooner. That "sell as fast as we can make them" really hurt them in the past... didn't it? Oh wait...

Its the PS3s that are supply constrained, due to an old SKU inventory clearing. Its the X360s that are constrained, due to clearance sale on an old SKU. Where do you guys get the idea that Wiis are constrained in NA, other than just guessing? Why are the other systems still selling at the same-old, same-old rates, if summer is downtime for console purchases? The clearance might explain it for the X360, but why the PS3? There's no price drop...

 

Well, there are a few things.

Nintendo Wiis are still unavailable from Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Wii-nintendo/dp/B0009VXBAQ/ref=sr_tr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1219203567&sr=8-1

Nintendo Wiis are going for around 300+ dollar average price on Ebay. Here's a link to a bid ending in 15 minutes, that has gotten up to 305.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-WII-NINTENDO-1-GAME-CONSOLE-SYSTEM-2-CONTRS-W-GAMES_W0QQitemZ130248077104QQihZ003QQcategoryZ139971QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Amazon stores are selling the Wii new for 35 more dollars than it costs on the shelf.

 

As well as the high probability that your anecdotes are made up, due to your dislike of the Wii, rather than your actual experience. Anyway, what are you, guessing?

 

...and there is also your lack of knowledge concerning generally accepted indicators of supply constraint, which is odd considering your post was very hostile, despite that ignorance.

There's also your complete ignorance of the evidence we've seen of stockpiling in the past, as FishyJoe pointed out. Nobody has been able to completely explain why it happens, but it certainly does. You should ask someone to present such evidence, as I doubt you would be able to determine for yourself if it was true, due to your obvious lack of knowledge about a subject that have been explored on this forum over the past year. I assure you it exists. I'm not sure it is a factor in the current shortage, but I'm not here to speculate. I'm only commenting on the evidence. None of which is anecdotal. That sort of evidence is very often fake.

 

I see why you picked the avatar "Groucho" though. You need to get learn a little bit more about the history of the Wii supply issue before you start flaming everyone baselessly.

 

However, you must be correct. The fad is over.