TheBigFatJ said:
Maybe because Nintendo has repeatedly stated that there is no warehouse full of Wiis and they haven't been stockpiling. The kind of stockpiling people were talking about was several million units. Even if they were just stockpiling from September to November, it would be about 700k/month which would be 2.1 million units. Those kinds of numbers that people were assuming in the past (other stated that they were stockpiling since July or earlier) would mean Nintendo would easily be selling a million per week, PLUS the extra units sitting on Japanese shelves because they hadn't been selling there. If they sell 2.5 million in the first 30 days of December (~700k over production), there would still be no good evidence of stockpiling because Nintendo's factories could have been configured to put the Japanese firmware on that many units that didn't sell due to the months of slow Japanese Wii sales. Nintendo could have worked double-time to reflash the firmware in those units and sell them elsewhere, as well as halting the production of Japanese models and using existing stock to satisfy that region. Frankly, we don't know what Nintendo's production rates have been, when they changed to what (except the 1.8 million number), how worldwide distribution has gone, etc. Nintendo stated many times that they were planning to increase production and many times that they'd had problems increasing production. The recent statements have been the best we've got so far. George Harrison said "Normally we would come into the October-November-December time period with a warehouse pretty well stocked with hardware, but we never were able to achieve that this year because we were shipping and selling everything that we received from overseas." http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-21528100.htm There are other Nintendo execs saying the same thing. I think this is definitive evidence and hopefully the "Nintendo is stockpiling" and "Nintendo is creating demand by withholding Wiis" crowds. Also from the article: " It takes Nintendo five months to increase production from the time it makes the decision to do so, Harrison says." Consider that Nintendo can't adjust production for today's demand -- they have to adjust production for demand in five months. So right when the Wii was released it is understandable that they waited a bit: would you spend a lot of money increasing manufacturing capacity five months into the future based on two months of selling out a new product? You don't know what happens in those five months. |
You may have a point about the possibility of holiday-only increases in manufacturing. But frankly I don't care much about discussing whether the additional units were stockpiled or manufactured in a kind of holiday-only run. The effect is the same, the only difference being important only for Nintendo, so it's not something which should concern us. The point is that either way, supply during the holidays is bigger.
Regarding what Reggie said here, it's PR which seems to have a very specific meaning - they're not withdrawing Wiis in order to increase demand by creating an artificial shortage. It doesn't say that Wiis aren't being withheld to increase supply for the holiday season. Consider that the same person also said that they'd break their sales record in the week before Christmas, what does that tell you? They're increasing supply during that week, either by stockpiling or additional production or whatever has the same effect.
1.8 million per month is 414k per week, and we're seeing sales above that, which are likely to increase in the coming weeks. That's all I care about regarding this topic, the rest is speculation which only Nintendo could clarify.
My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957
