Whats up with there being a Wii "Shortage" when sales are looking like this

[Sri Lumpa]

Nintendo is not holding units back to create an impression of scarcity but since the latest production increase they held up the additional Wiis produced for the necessary Xmas stockpile.

They don't need to hold back supply to give the impression to be sold out, as they are already selling more than either competitors, often more than them combined, and this alone is a really impressive feat. If they were selling the least while selling out this conspiracy theory might have some merit but the high sale numbers make it ridiculous.

However, Xmas is the biggest shopping season in many countries and a lot of people would be willing to spend $250 on a Wii that might not be willing at any other time of the year so Nintendo needed to have a lot of supply at Xmas to reach as many of these customers as possible. To that effect they kept the supply steady when the production increased and stockpiled the difference for Xmas.

If you do not believe that the Wii would still have been sold out if they had not stockpiled (in America anyway as it was not sold out in Europe since the beginning of the summer and in Japan since the end of the summer) just wait a month or two and see how Nintendo keeps being sold out in America while they sell close to 1.8 millions a month (their current production capacity, though the number might be a little lower for January depending on whether Nintendo had to airfreight some Wiis for last week's numbers instead of shipping them as such Wiis would have been on shelves either this week or next month).

Of course it might be that with the great amount of Wiis sold during the holiday season the demand might be close enough to being met that 1.8 millions a month will be enough to keep them on shelves but I do not think it will happen in early 2008, if at all this year (in America anyway).