| BTFeather55 said: Here's my big problem with the Wii: I was thinking about getting a Wii during the holiday season '06. I had all three last gen consoles. And, if I had purchased one then I probably wouldn't have a PS3 now. However, due to the shortages (which there is no way to prove this unless Nintendo says they did it; however, I think Nintendo looked at how having shortages during the Christmas '05 season worked in the 360's favor to generate hype and demand for that console and borrowed a page from that book by making the Wii scarce during Christmas '06 and '07 generating much word of mouth interest for the Wii especially in its "new market") I was unable to buy the cheaper Wii during the Christmas holidays '06, and it would have fit my budget far better than the PS3. So, when I saw them in stores in early '07, I decided to buy a Playstation 3 thinking surely the console would catch on and have the same success as the PS1 and PS2. It was a much more powerful console and should have had a PS2 type game library. However, the Wii remained scarce and in the process generating more demand than if it had been more readilly available. Scarcity does lead to demand, isn't that a principle of economics? |
You're basically saying that by putting out less consoles, they sell more. Just take a quick glance at that statement. Let me put it to you like this:
There are 4 people wanting to buy your product. You produce 3. Thus, you sell 5.
Or how about this:
Looking at previous trends, you see that products similar to yours have been selling at a rate of around 5 per week. So you produce 10 per week so that you can create a fake demand when they sell out.
You could also look at it like this:
There are 10+ people standing in line for your product. Thus you make 8 units, sell them and hope that the other people standing in line will not get a similar one but instead tell all their friends about this awesome thing they could not buy.
In short, the theory that Nintendo is trying to create artificial demand really doesn't make sense. You DO NOT WANT to miss sales because you didn't produce enough. Especially if you make money on every single unit sold. That is the actual economic principle.
Nintendo does gain publicity on being constantly sold out, yes. But if they had been able to produce more from the start, they would have sold more from the start, and that would have been better for software sales and word of mouth as well.
Also, it's kinda hard to create artificial demand that lasts for two years. I would dare say that it is impossible. It might have been possible if the Wii was a fad. Are you saying the Wii is a fad? It's also true that Nintendo has increased its production by over 100% the last two years, in order to keep up with demand. That is quite telling. If you want artificial demand, why increase production?
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