I think the answer is quite clear.... Perhaps we can put this argument to rest?

Lets do some simple maths.

Currently they are selling roughly 625,000 Wii's a week (they have sold virtually the same each week for the last 3 weeks).

Doing some calculations that equates to selling 2.7 million consoles during this month.

If production is at 1.8 million  there are another .9 million coming from somewhere.

When did Nintendo convert to 1.8 million a month?  I understand it was October - November some time when it was first announced, so maybe it took effect from November only.

During November Nintendo sold roughly 970,000 which is just under half the supposed 1.8 million produced that month pretty much the exact amount that they are up in December.

Myself, I don't believe they stockpiled - I originally did, however this evidence leads me to believe otherwise.

What do you think? Have you got any other kind of evidence to change these thoughts?

* All numbers are VGChartz numbers.

I've always believed they stockpiled for these couple months, as they should have, because demand is always higher around the holidays. They're selling out of their stockpile though, so it's not gonna get much higher.

There's plenty of evidence to suggest there was some stockpiling, even from Nintendo sources. Consider that they sold 350k Wiis on Black Friday week in USA alone, and Reggie said that the 600k in one week record would be beaten again.

1.8 million units per month is ~414k units per week. Look at that number, then look at all the numbers from various sources and ask yourself if it's in any way possible that they are not stockpiling. I believe it's not.

Regarding when 1.8 million per month production started, it was during fiscal Q2, which takes us back to the end of September if not earlier.

Sources:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a3FKYMLPMdoE

http://kotaku.com/gaming/black-friday/nintendo-350k-wii-sold-last-week-record-ds-sales-327167.php

Well didn't the wii start out production at around 1.2 mil? At the very least, they were making around 1.4m by August/Sept timeframe.

Were sales during those months anywhere close to 1.4 mil? If not, those systems had to go somewhere.

I'm betting they stockpiled, though not by a large amount.

Let's step back fo a moment. This was never about November's (or October's or Septmber's) Wiis being sold in December.

The stockpiling subject came up in the spring of this year. At that time, many people became upset with the fact that the Wii had seen too little supply for months and months with no end in sight. The stockpile theorists answered this with their belief that Nintendo had opted to save up Wiis for the holidays, possibly a few 100k per month which would end up in millions of extra supply for Christmas.

So far, these millions have not shown up. Supply has increased steadily in line with Nintendo's production announcments, but there hasn't been the miraculous relief that the stockpile theorists had promised back in Spring and Summer. The quarter is not over, so that's all I can say, but if Nintendo won't ship significantly more than 5.4 million units this quarter (matching the current production rate), the stockpile theory is going to be debunked.*

*Vgchartz' numbers for the quarter could be a couple of 100k higher than Nintendo's if Europe sells out again (continental Europe wasn't sold out before the Season started). So I would put the bar for vgchartz' numbers to "significantly higher than 6.0 million units in this quarter" if Europe sells out or "5.5 million" if Europe doesn't sell out. So far we're at 3.9 million.

Say June - Aug was 1.2mil each, and Sept-Dec is 1.8mil each. That's 10.8million that will be produced for 2nd half 2007.

June 4 total sales were 7.9M. Now 16.1M. So, just over 8M Wii sold since the beginning of June. With 3 more weeks till 12/29, that would allow for 900k a week. Except for they would have nothing left on 12/30. So, if there is a stockpile and it hasn't been drain out already, probably an average of 800K a week for the next 3 weeks will be sold. At least that would be my guess.

At this point I'd wager any stockpile reminding will be shipped the week prior to Christmas. Whatever they stockpiled clearly wasn't nearly enough.