proof that nintendo is stock piling wiis?

[NJ5]

TheBigFatJ said:
I guess we're just going to have to wait and see whether Nintendo lying to us, as all of those who claim Nintendo is stockpiling are suggesting, or are they struggling to increase production, as Nintendo states.

People seem to assume that holiday sales are implicitly more valuable than sales any other time of the year. The fact of the matter is that a Wii sale today is worth more than a Wii sale in five months, and this is for a large variety of reasons. Two of the larger reasons follow:

(1) Wii sales are Nintendo's best method of advertising the system. You cannot play it in most stores and you cannot get a feel for it from commercials. Many people who Nintendo want to sell the system to don't even pay much attention to video game commercials because they feel those commercials do not apply to them.

(2) Wii sales now will lead to greater profits. You can speculate day and night about who Nintendo will sell units to, but Nintendo ultimately exists to create profit and, by law, they must make decisions that they believe will lead to the most profitability. A Wii sale now has the potential to affect video game sales -- someone who owns a Wii may buy several games before Christmas -- as well as accessory sales.

Because of point (1), withholding Wiis will potentially stunt demand. It is expensive for Nintendo to hold Wiis in a warehouse if they could otherwise be selling them. No one offered a compelling suggesting explaining how Nintendo 'winning' the holidays would lead to them making bigger profits. People have simply suggested that sales will magically appear during Christmas that wouldn't otherwise exist. Newsflash: Nintendo isn't having a shortage of potential buyers.

It seems most people here who believe in stockpiling are suggesting that Nintendo is putting away 300k-500k/month right now, and will unleash millions during the holiday season. How much does it cost Nintendo to store millions of Wiis? If they're holding back millions of Wiis, that's likely millions or possibly ~10 million of software sales *before* the holiday in addition to whatever happens during the holiday. The longer you can have someone playing your console, the more money you make.

Nintendo's sales right now are especially valuable because they're making an impression on third parties. Nearly every week third parties decide which platforms to start new game development on. Don't you think that if Nintendo could unleash an additional 100k units/week on the world wide market and catapult the Wii sales to nearly DS sales, it could affect their decisions and further strengthen Nintendo's market position?

The holiday season is revered as so important in the retail world because of the level of demand during that period. If your product sees that level of demand year-round, how important is the holiday season?

I don't think Nintendo is concerned about short-term profits here. As Sony keeps saying, "it's a 10-year lifecycle". Might not be 10 years for the Wii, but...

You aren't considering the PR perspective. Christmas is special, and Nintendo knows it.

Besides, are you really attempting to convince us that almost an year after launching the Wii, Nintendo won't have increased manufacturing at all since its launch?