April 29th, 2007 NA

[KruzeS]

Diomedes1976 said:
I am from Spain in Europe and we have had the WIi in stores for two months at least now.Yes the same Europe Nintendo "couldnt " keep up with the demand .One thing is pure data ,the other is PR and marketing .Its important not to confound both .

Well, I'm from Portugal, and the fact an item is somewhat "in stock" does not mean shipped isn't very approximately equal to sold. The Wii as been "in stock" here since January, but the truth is when I went to buy mine in March, out of 7 stores in the mall, only 1 had them (and just 3 units). When we gave one as a gift to a friend last month, we had to delay the purchase, because when we actually went out to buy it, it was sold out, despite being wildly available just days before. The truth is, at least around here, the system is still moving fast, it is not like its collecting dust or something - I'd bet everything shipped, is sold within the week. And I guess that's why systems aren't moved to places where demand is even higher: the system keeps selling, the orders keep coming - just about everywhere. It'd be hard to believe any entire country is building stock while its neighbours are in a total drought.

Besides, as I'm sure you know the EU is very heterogeneous. In some places Sony sells, others are Nintendoland, and in the UK the Xbox is actually doing pretty good. Nintendo doesn't even represent itself across Europe, and even where it does, Nintendo Europe sucks. Actually, if anything, Portugal is not a Nintendo country, its Sony or Microsoft. Nintendo doesn't even market its products here, and the local representative does squat to push them.

European anecdotal evidence really has no bearing at all when discussing American data. Remmember that when the Wii numbers were scaled back, it was Europe that dropped from 2m to 1.7m. And as for the 360 numbers, I still think those are too low. I highly doubt there have been millions of units still stuffed everywhere in the supply chain for months. But still, I'm not complaining. You are - always pushing your beloved Sony.

PS: As an aside, could you please put your punctuation before spaces when writing english? I'm sorry, but I find your spaces before highly distracting.