TheBigFatJ said:
Maybe because Nintendo has repeatedly stated that there is no warehouse full of Wiis and they haven't been stockpiling. The kind of stockpiling people were talking about was several million units. Even if they were just stockpiling from September to November, it would be about 700k/month which would be 2.1 million units. Those kinds of numbers that people were assuming in the past (other stated that they were stockpiling since July or earlier) would mean Nintendo would easily be selling a million per week, PLUS the extra units sitting on Japanese shelves because they hadn't been selling there. If they sell 2.5 million in the first 30 days of December (~700k over production), there would still be no good evidence of stockpiling because Nintendo's factories could have been configured to put the Japanese firmware on that many units that didn't sell due to the months of slow Japanese Wii sales. Nintendo could have worked double-time to reflash the firmware in those units and sell them elsewhere, as well as halting the production of Japanese models and using existing stock to satisfy that region. Frankly, we don't know what Nintendo's production rates have been, when they changed to what (except the 1.8 million number), how worldwide distribution has gone, etc. Nintendo stated many times that they were planning to increase production and many times that they'd had problems increasing production. The recent statements have been the best we've got so far. George Harrison said "Normally we would come into the October-November-December time period with a warehouse pretty well stocked with hardware, but we never were able to achieve that this year because we were shipping and selling everything that we received from overseas." http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-21528100.htm There are other Nintendo execs saying the same thing. I think this is definitive evidence and hopefully the "Nintendo is stockpiling" and "Nintendo is creating demand by withholding Wiis" crowds. Also from the article: " It takes Nintendo five months to increase production from the time it makes the decision to do so, Harrison says." Consider that Nintendo can't adjust production for today's demand -- they have to adjust production for demand in five months. So right when the Wii was released it is understandable that they waited a bit: would you spend a lot of money increasing manufacturing capacity five months into the future based on two months of selling out a new product? You don't know what happens in those five months. |
Ok the firmware theory is an absolute stretch, this is just not the way a supply chain is run.
We are past the point that we are discussing IF there was stockpiling...the only question now is when it started and how many they stockpiled. And this is my logic for that statement:
READ THIS: The reality of the situation is that either way Nintendo is lying about something. They are either lying about not stockpiling or they are lying about the ramped up production. Because they either stockpiled those extra unsold units each month leading up to December or they lied about being at 1.8m production per month in the first place.
When you consider that their 1.8m production has real implications in their financial reports I don't think it is very hard to understand the logic behind assuming they are lying about the stockpiling. The reasons for lying about stockpiling are pretty damn good too. But going to jail for lying in a financial statement doesn't sound like the kind of business move Nintendo would make...but I suppose I could be wrong about that.
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