Nintendo was conservative by not ramping up production to meet demand ALL YEAR. Yes, the Wii is the fastest selling console but production still wasn't high enough, I believe, to not even come anywhere close to meeting demand. Resellers selling the Wii at a higher price this year than last year is a strong indicator of that. As I said before, I wouldn't doubt there would be 10-15 million more Wiis in people's homes if Nintendo produced enough.

Nintendo said themselves they usually stockpile during the summer to meet demand for the holiday season but couldn't because the Wii was consistently soldout. Then should it be so obvious for Nintendo to really, really ramp up production to try to meet demand especially for this time of the year?

Even Nintendo admitted that it was a missed opportunity. I am just emphasizing how big that opportunity was.

Nintendo got it absolutly right in terms of producing a console people wanted to buy, but there no doubt it's failure to meet supply lost it a lot of money and sales.

I expect demand to stay strong though. I wonder how long it will be before they decide to expand capacity further? Especially considering they're in such a strong position to cut prices if they need to, I can't understand how conservative they've been with boosting supply.

Gamecube scarred them.

I laugh so much at this. I remember Nintendo's marketing line in 2006. "Well, the PS3 is going to be sold out this christmas, but we'll have tons of Wii's on the shelf as a good alternative to the PS3". That is what Nintendo was saying around the E3. They had absolutely no clue it was going to be this big of a demand.

Besides, it takes twice as long to manufacture a Wii as it did a gamecube. Yep. You have to make two gamecubes and duct tape them together, of course, so it takes twice as long

I wonder how those 3,000 employees are making 1.8 Million Wiis + over 2 million DS systems a month (isn't that just two gameboys duct taped together?)

I should have bought stock in duct tape, it's the future *LOL*

@vizion--your ignorance is almost blinding--no company has ever been in the situation nintendo is is now, well video game anyways,---sure there are times where companies are hit with a crunch but not a 13 month crunch like the big n has

and they have tried to increase production multiple times, they have tried also to re route shipments to meet demand, they have even tried to pull ads to try to styme demand----face it they have done all they can in teh time given them

and sure some people wnt be able to get a wii but dont blame the company that is uping production and still not being able to meet the crazy amount of demand just b/c you think they should magicly be able to produce more then that

If we're gonna play the "Coulda, woulda, shoulda" game, what Nintendo really should have done initially to normalize the supply-demand curve was to sell the machine at $299 USD rather than $249. Would have probably still sold out, and Nintendo would be sitting on an even huger pile of money right now. Believe me, if there's any lesson they're taking from this as they plan the launch of Wii 2 in 5 or so years, it's that.

As far as increasing production, I'm sure they did what they felt they could. The attitude of the OP is that Nintendo hates money and has stubbornly resisted increasing production because, once again, they hate money. Which couldn't be further from the truth. On both the increasing production thing AND the hating money thing.

the problem is the time between planning stock increase.,.and when it arrives

nintendo originally planned 500k a month production post release...

realized @ E3 that year that they had Something that Might sell better than expected/planned

cancelled the planned reduction to 500k release and maintained the ~800k production line

Wii released...and sold out...more came in...and sold out..

nintendo increased production to 1m a month...and sold out

nintendo increased production again to 1.8 million a month (around sept is when it kicked in....and sold out.

they've more than Tripled their initial 500k a month production line estimate and still have not met demand...

if/when nintendo increases production AGAIN...it most likely will be to AROUND 2.2 to 2.6 million a month

^bingo

This topic has some great logic and some great failures as well. Seriously, Nintendo dropped the ball by getting enough consoles out to the market fast enough to make it the fastest selling console in a years time?

I guess when DS was sold out last year, Nintendo was to blame as well? It could not be that demand was actually astonishing? They make around 1.8 million Wii consoles a month and sell around 1.5 million of them. How in the hell could this be their fault?

One poster has it right by blaming Pikmin and their Ghaude.

People

1. Remember that NO ONE thought the Revolution (now the Wii) would sell very well. There were cries that Nintendo should get out of the console market and concentrate on handhelds and software less than two years ago.

2. If production has increased 2-3 times, it is really tough to make the case that Nintendo has "dropped the ball." You can say that they did not see the magnitude of the success of the Wii coming -- but name me two people who did.

3. Compare the Wii to any other system, its first-year demand is unprecedented. It is the "hot item" for a second Christmas/holiday shopping season.

3a. The last item that might have had that status were Cabbage Patch Dolls a quarter century ago. Then they overproduced, no one wanted them, and the company evenutally went under for that and other reasons (the ADAM didn't help Coleco either. Ironically, they are now produced by Mattel, a one-time competitor of Coleco in the video game wars).

4. Remember civility. I am seeing less of that in some posts. And it seems as if those who are posting in that manner have very low post counts. That means they may be newcomers from other places. In that case, Welcome. But also note that this place is known for its relatively civil discussions -- compared to the rest of the web.

Mike from Morgantown

Perhaps someone here could give some better insight into this, but how much of the demand is increase by the fact that Nintendo has not met it?

I mean, there is speculation here that Nintendo could have moved two times as many consoles already, but I've never seen anything that really estimates actual demand. Let's assume that Nintendo is currently running at say 95% of demand, does that lacking 5% actually increase demand so when Nintendo does step up production, they move back onto the 95% mark.

I'm not suggesting that this is what Nintendo is doing, but it would have to be something that Nintendo has to factor in. No marketing beats the 'must have but hard to obtain' marketing that really drives people to purchasing.