Never said they upped it to 4.5 million, but I do notice a bit of discrepancy

@avinash
I think not including Q1 is the cause of the discrepency (as SQRL sort of notes). IIRC production was around 1.2 million a month and sales were 1-1.1 million but I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment. If that's not the cause then I would suspect Nintendo has slightly increased production again to around 1.9-2 million with the 1.8 million for August being true, for August. Or as a third option, VGChartz is off by less than 5%.

@SQRL
Great post as usual. I still can't believe that there are so many people who can't believe that Nintendo was stockpiling for the holidays.

July - 1.12m (extra: unknown)
Aug - 1.07m (extra: 0.73m)
Sep - 1.16m (extra: 0.64m)
Oct - 1.02m (extra: 0.78m)
Nov - 1.65m (extra: 0.15m)

Total Extra So Far: 2.3m

Dec - 4.58m (extra: -2.78m)

Ok I think that is the numbers you are looking at (posting it for clarity), but what I don't get is how you think the extra 2.78m units were sold in Decemeber if not through stockpiling?  The only way they didn't stockpile units is if production for december was actually at least at 4.3m or so.

I am trying to understand your point but you need to be a bit more clear please.  What, precisely, is your theory for where ALL of the extra units came from?  

Great post Sqrl, first off.

Though everyone with half a brain knew they were stockpiling, the question is, why were they saying they didnt have enough Wii's to meet demand months ago when they were sitting on Mountains of Wii's. Shorting the supply to create demand, create enough demand to get free publicity and then flood the market during Christmas Season to post amazing numbers.

Of course I'll just be flamed for saying that, but at least half of you are thinking it. Really if you take a step back and think of the company involved as.. say Ford, I doubt you would think twice about it. But since its your precious Nintendo... Well thats a different story.

I don't see stock pilling. Not, that I would think negative on Nintendo if they did.

THe only region where Wii was always sold out was NA. Europe had many reports as early as March that there was stock sitting in stores. Japan as early as July/August. So, the 'extra' is clearly units that were shifted from these areas to help NA.

That combined with a probably faster shipping process in Nov/Dec, which will lead to far less being sold in Jan, all contributed to what you see as an anomaly.

I don't really care about all this. If Nintendo stockpiled, that's good for them...it's better to sell more during the holidays, when parents all want to buy Wiis, and when press matters. And if Nintendo didn't stockpile, well then damn they pulled an extra 3 million consoles out of a hat.

Actually its 2.28 not 2.78, 4.58-2.3 is 2.28

Also its cool, I just checked on what Albonius said ,and he's right from April to July it was at 1.2 million up from 1 million earlier in the year, that was where the discrepancy I was noticing was coming from, that extra 800K of production

You do realise that consoles are region locked and it requires them to individually have be fixed in order to re-allocate them to a different region. This process cost time and money and its far easier to allow the stock that is already shipped to stay where it is and adjust your production ratios for the future.

With that said, the production numbers are global and no matter how much shuffling you do you cannot sell more than you have produced. Aside from that, stock only became readily available in a small number of EU countries and in Japan during the year. Now, when you consider that most EU countries only do about 10k on average per week those kinds of numbers simply do not add up to the amount of missing units we are talking about, even if you add in Japan. The major Wii stronghold in "Others" is the UK and it has continued to sell out before new shipments arrive all along. The UK also accounts for nearly 34% of Total Others sales for the Wii in 2007 all by itself.

But I also have to point out that if they were re-allocating units from Europe and Japan it wouldn't take months and months for them to arrive in the US. If they were being sent in March & July/August they should have arrived well before decemeber...which means they were still stockpiled anyways.

I don't want to dismiss anyone out of hand but I really don't find your scenario very plausible on its own. Now perhaps your theory could work as a supplementary re-allocation of units to assist in meeting demand but there would still need to be stockpiling in a major way to make these kinds of units available.

 Bleh, brain-fart moment, my mistake.

Yes.  Reggie also said that NOA (America) didn't have a huge warehouse full of Wiis for the holidays (which doesn't mean Nintendo, as a whole, wasn't saving them up for bigger shipments to the States).  Nintendo's statements are always carefully worded; they don't want to outright lie, but they do want to create the most favorable impression possible, so they tiptoe right up to the line.