cdude1034 said: Dryden said:   If a person wants a Wii, they'll wind up getting one.  yeah, for ~$420 on ebay...

lol, at least you'd be making some money though, right?

Reggie is full of it. I've seen the satellite surveillance photos!

http://www.fauxwoodbeams.com/img_appearance/basic/satellite.jpg
http://uk.gizmodo.com/willmain.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/78/SONIC_WII_CVR_SHT2.jpg/256px-SONIC_WII_CVR_SHT2.jpg What do you think the big "secret" behind those rings is?

We lost a lot of good men for these photos. If Nintendo catches you, they can be ruthless.

Double post.

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).

YfzinJay said: For anyone that thought they were stock pile wii's it would just be unrealistic. WHy would nintendo spend money to stockpile wii's, when they can easily just sell them to retailers and make money?

Winning the Christmas holiday gives you free media publicity which gives you momentun going into the New Year.

Dryden said: Nintendo's George Harrison states (clarifies?) that Nintendo isn't warehousing anything. http://www.wired.com/gaming/hardware/news/2007/11/wii_shortage "Typically, we'd have begun stockpiling console hardware back in August" for the holiday season, Harrison says. "But this year, we were selling all the Wii we could get, and we got all the way through the summer with basically no inventory in our warehouse." I'll leave it to the tin foil hat wearers to debate the wording choice of "through the summer" instead of "through the fall."

That's a very good find. To all the naysayers, it confirms that stockpiling is indeed normal, and you are correct that his wording leaves the possibility of post-August stockpiling open.

According to Nintendo, they started producing 1.8 million per month no later than the end of September, and they've been shipping certainly less than that.

 

Dryden said: Bodhesatva said: On the contrary, the Christmas period is the only time where you are likely to lose substantial portions of customers. During the middle of the year, people are buying video game systems largely for themselves; if they cannot find one, they'll usually wait. I'm sure a small portion get impatient and buy a PS3 or 360 instead. The problem at Christmas is that most people are no longer buying for themselves, they're buying for other people, and that changes the game. Instead of just competing against the PS3 and 360, the Wii is competing against HDTVs, GPS systems, Ipods, Silk Neckties, games for systems the people already own, and so forth. The criterion at Christmas is to find a gift that the receiver will like, and once that is satisfied, the gift giver stops looking. If they can't find a Wii with any alacrity, choosing another option besides a Wii will happen much more frequently at this time of year than it will in June. The fact that nearly every major electronics retailer stockpiles for the holidays is rather convincing proof of this phenomenon. I agree with normal business models, but not with Wii. It's uniqueness makes it irreplaceable in terms of numbers that will have a lasting impact on the consoles lifetime sales. People who can't find a 360 may buy a PS3, or vice versa outside of the most loyal Sony fanboys or Halo die-hards, but the Wii bucks that trend. If a person wants a Wii, they'll wind up getting one.

that's exactly bod's point. If someone wants a Wii, they'll get one. it doesn't matter if they get one in July or Next July, it's a sale for Nintendo. What Nintendo don't want to lose are the people who are buying a Christmas present for little Timmy. If during the holiday season there are not enough Wiis, then little Timmy is going to get something else. He may not wind up getting a Wii till next year, or ever.

Christmas buyers can't afford to wait around and eventually buy a Wii. They have a time limit. If a Wii does not present itself within that time limit, then they're just going to have to buy something else. That is a lost sale.

Hence, it makes sense to stockpile for Christmas, where the people who buy the system are most likely to be lost buyers if they can't find one, rather than during the summer, where a person looking for the system is likely to just wait until they can get one.

 

Astrodust said: YfzinJay said: For anyone that thought they were stock pile wii's it would just be unrealistic. WHy would nintendo spend money to stockpile wii's, when they can easily just sell them to retailers and make money? Winning the Christmas holiday gives you free media publicity which gives you momentun going into the New Year.

only thing is: YOU ARE ALREADY SOLD OUT!!! what momentum do you need? Im with the Yguy on that one. 

Faxanadu said: Astrodust said: YfzinJay said: For anyone that thought they were stock pile wii's it would just be unrealistic. WHy would nintendo spend money to stockpile wii's, when they can easily just sell them to retailers and make money? Winning the Christmas holiday gives you free media publicity which gives you momentun going into the New Year. only thing is: YOU ARE ALREADY SOLD OUT!!! what momentum do you need? Im with the Yguy on that one.

Free publicity is always good. Nintendo certainly prefers seeing headlines about how they won the holiday season to headlines like "Sony and Microsoft beat Nintendo who can't manufacture enough consoles".

 

Reggie has stated many times now that Nintendo is not stockpiling Wiis in a warehouse.  However, Nintendo may have been inadvertently stockpiling Wiis depending on how their distribution has gone so far.  For example, if they have a million units in Japan waiting to be sold, that's effectively a ~20 week stockpile at current sales rates.  That means that Nintendo could either (1) change the region encoding, depending on how involved that is, and sell those to America or (2) shift production of Wiis to another region (this would require only changing the region locking step.

The region change could be as simple as flashing the firmware, which could mean Nintendo may end up the holidays with a shortage in Japan as well as everywhere else in the world if they're doing a fantastic job of (re)distributing all of their units.

There is more to console war momentum than being able to sell as much as you manufacture.  If Nintendo could sell 5 million units in December, this would give them a huge boost with third parties.  Further, there would be additional game sales for Nintendo themselves.

I don't think Super Mario Galaxy will ever reach a ~50% attach rate like Halo 3 did, although I suspect that H3's attach rate will decrease a little as time goes on and Mario Galaxy will maintain its ratio.  More units sold may help Galaxy surpass H3 in total sales.