The truth to the Wii shortages?

[Rugger08]

NJ5 said:

@Tharthesos:

As some people have said, this looks correct on the surface but doesn't hold much water on closer inspection:

1- it doesn't explain why the Wii has been sold out in America every single week since launch, even when it wasn't sold out anywhere else.

2- Software sales are tied to hardware sales, and, according to this currency theory, they're also more interesting for Nintendo in Europe, since games cost 50 € which is more than $50 even accounting for taxes. If hardware sales are so important for their profit, why don't they launch games such as SSBB earlier? I don't even mean earlier than in USA, just not months later than in USA.

3- Otherwise, if as you said software sales are more profitable in USA, to sell software you need to sell hardware first, and software is certainly more profitable than hardware. This also goes against Nintendo making America suffer from a shortage of Wiis.

The bottom line is that this explanation is at best insufficient, and at worst totally incongruent with reality. Better than typical Pachter, but still not very good.

The simple and IMO correct explanation for the shortages is that Wii demand is higher than expected everywhere in the world, especially so in America. This means that unless production is increased, there's no way supply will be enough in America.

PS: I don't think the stockpiling has anything to do with currencies. It has to do with the necessity of Wiis for the Chinese/Korean launch, Wii Fit launch, holiday season. In other words, the reason for stockpiling is the same as last year's plus the Asian launches.

 

1) Yes it does explain why the Wii has been sold out every week since launch. Nintendo isn't as interested in meeting demand in America as it is in Europe and Japan. What other reasonable explination is there for Wiis sitting on the shelf in Europe and Japan, but not in America?

2 and 3)  I really like Tharthesos' explination for this. In general Nintendo releases a game in Japan first, translates it into English and releases it in America, then has to translate the game into Spanish, French, German and Italian before they can release it in Europe. Unless ofcourse they wanted to have several release dates in Europe for the different countries as they finish translating each language. This argument is very logical. 

Notice how Nintendo releases Brawl in Japan then about a month later they release it in America then several months later they release it in Europe. It takes a lot longer to translate the game into 4 new languages than it takes to translate it into just one language.