Reggie: There is no secret Wii warehouse.

[bdbdbd]

CHYUII said:
Personally, I don't think they are hording them I just think that Nintendo is very cautious about creating more factories to meet the demand. I think a part of this is because they are a games company and not a mega- major electronics company like Micro- Soft and Sony. Nintendo has had some succes in their past but they have also had some less than stellar sells on their consels. The Game Cube didn't sell that great even though they expected it to do better it never did. It had awesome holiday sells and post holiday hype and then it dropped off. The same thing happened with the N64, it was the hottest thing out there and then after the allure of Mario wore off everyone left it for PS.
SO what I think is happening here is Nintendo does not want to make more factories (pay employees, ship parts, buy parts (like the Broad Way chips from IBM) because they don't know if the sells they are experiencing now are going to be the norm for the system or if they are going to level out (at a lower rate).
Now what if they built all of those factories and then all of a sudden no one wants a Wii anymore? Do you know how much money they would lose? At the same time Reggie/ Nintendo realizes that they are hot right now and they look at the current situation and think man it would be great if we had more systems out there. And they would say that because they can see that everything is still selling where as months ago they couldn't have know.
Other things have change too. Like you have consider that Nin's rival have both dropped the prices on there systems and in light of that I think that it would be wise to have a wait and see attitude. They aren't oblivious to every saying things like "The reason the Wii is selling is because it is so cheap." They also know that mostly their games are carrying the system because a lot of 3rd parties (for various reasons) are making Wii-Crap titles. They know that the same 3rd parties are resenting Nintendo's sucess and that some of the gamers are upset with them for not having good 3rd party titles. They still are fighting the kiddy image that so-called Hardcore's are throwing on them but they also get it from developers as well. Despite the fact that they had Manhunt 2, God Father, Scarface, RE4, RS1... etc you can still hear people and companies say Nintendo is kiddy or "this game won't fit their demograph."
If any of you remember, the Gamecube and the N64, faced similar criticisms from fans and critics. Those criticisms hurt the company greatly, that is why they went a different path with Wii. So I just think they aren't in hurry to boost demand until they are 100% that demand will remain this high.
If Wii-Fit is very successful (as most predict), I think then and only then will they create more factories.

But there is one thing that is true it is better in the public's eye to have to little of something, that to have to much of something. If they made those factories and maybe they created more systems than "demand" could absorb or if the demand suddenly dropped sharply- do you know what the perception would be to the customers, the analyst, and the STOCK HOLDERS when the news story hits in the Wall Street Journal: NINTENDO CLOSES FACTORY DUE TO LOWER DEMAND IN SYSTEM.

As for me I can wait 2 years for mine, I go to the store and look at all of the games I want to play and I dream of what price they will be when I finally (w/out camping) get my hands on a Wii. I bet by then even the Wii will be cheaper. I did the same with my DS.

Considering the facts, there are some things that you're way off. 1. If Iwata is to belive, Nintendo expects really high sales for the Wii. 2. Wii was originally planned to be manufactured 500k a month, but between E3 2006 and Wii launch, Nintendo managed to ramp production to 1M a month. Production was ramped to 1,3M in 3/07. Production was planned to be ramped to 1,8M a month in 6/07(?), but it got delayed because of supplier not being able to supply the required amount of components. And they definately are working on the next ramp up. So, they have increased production by more than 250% in one year, and i don't think that should be considered as conservative. 3. Nintendo doesn't want to get rid of their image, that "fits for kids", they may only want to expand it to "fits for everyone". 4. Actually, you gave good reasons to why the demand isn't expected to drop, a) they haven't dropped the price, and still easilly outsell the competition b) the games are still coming. Now, unlike GC, which had really good start gameswise, and then a drought followed and N64, which had only Super Mario 64 and no 3rd party support, Wii is currently having it's worst situation gameswise and it's 3rd party support is growing, so theres really no reason for the demand to drop (besides the temporary jan-feb lull).