Wii limited supply intentional

[albionus]

I’m somewhat split on this issue. Intentionally withholding stock seems stupid to us but Nintendo is a corporation first and foremost. I’ve read a lot of ideas why they would do it, managers made their quota and want to give themselves breathing room for next year, Nintendo is doing it to keep the Wii out of stock and still the hard to get must have item, they’re a corporation and do corporationy things, to make money or something. Of course it could as others have mentioned just be a case of sour grapes. I think if Nintendo is doing it it’s because of the April release of Super Paper Mario in the US and Japan. SPM is by all accounts going to be an amazing and well selling game. What better way to usher in it and a much more available Wii than being able to temporarily flood stores with stock when SPM is released? Everyone opens their April 9th newspaper ads up to see SPM and “WII IN STOCK!!!” on the front of every electronic store ad. It would sort of be like the dual release of the DS Lite and NSMB. Assuming Nintendo has in fact increased production already, there is sort of a dearth of great Wii games at the moment. If Nintendo increased shipments in March they would have run the risk of the system becoming too available and no longer a “gotta have it now” item, especially as people ask where are the great games? This way Nintendo doesn’t risk that happening, and when it is fully available there will be SPM and, ugh, Pokemon to tide consumers over until the string of big games hits after the summer. Anyways, whatever happened we’ll soon find out.