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Forums - Sales - Stockpiling - The Debate is Over

Final-Fan on 03 January 2008
Sqrl said:

We all know that there isn't a magical switch that just turns on extra supply

Actually, I believe NJ5 revealed the shocking truth some time ago:



Tag (courtesy of fkusumot): "Please feel free -- nay, I encourage you -- to offer rebuttal."
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My advice to fanboys: Brag about stuff that's true, not about stuff that's false. Predict stuff that's likely, not stuff that's unlikely. You will be happier, and we will be happier.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Sen. Pat Moynihan
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The old smileys: ; - ) : - ) : - ( : - P : - D : - # ( c ) ( k ) ( y ) If anyone knows the shortcut for , let me know!
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I have the most epic death scene ever in VGChartz Mafia.  Thanks WordsofWisdom! 

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Final-Fan on 03 January 2008

Seriously, though, great analysis as usual Sqrl.



Tag (courtesy of fkusumot): "Please feel free -- nay, I encourage you -- to offer rebuttal."
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My advice to fanboys: Brag about stuff that's true, not about stuff that's false. Predict stuff that's likely, not stuff that's unlikely. You will be happier, and we will be happier.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Sen. Pat Moynihan
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The old smileys: ; - ) : - ) : - ( : - P : - D : - # ( c ) ( k ) ( y ) If anyone knows the shortcut for , let me know!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I have the most epic death scene ever in VGChartz Mafia.  Thanks WordsofWisdom! 

Sqrl on 03 January 2008
Final-Fan said:
Sqrl said:

We all know that there isn't a magical switch that just turns on extra supply

Actually, I believe NJ5 revealed the shocking truth some time ago:


 I almost included that as a link in my OP =P.....but I decided to keep it with a serious tone.  
To Each Man, Responsibility
Entroper on 03 January 2008

P.S. Sqrl, great thread, A++. Will read again.



http://entroper.no-ip.org

Entroper on 03 January 2008
Sqrl said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:

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


Bleh, brain-fart moment, my mistake.


No, you were right.  It's not 4.58 - 2.3, it's 4.58 - Dec production, which is 4.58 - 1.8, which is 2.78, which is what you said.  :)



http://entroper.no-ip.org

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Sqrl on 03 January 2008
Entroper said:
Sqrl said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:

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


Bleh, brain-fart moment, my mistake.


No, you were right. It's not 4.58 - 2.3, it's 4.58 - Dec production, which is 4.58 - 1.8, which is 2.78, which is what you said. :)


Lol, thanks Entroper. I thought it was weird that I would have that wrong since I was using a calculator, but stranger things have happened.



To Each Man, Responsibility
Renar on 03 January 2008
Avinash_Tyagi said:
Sqrl said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
Sqrl said:

IIRC their production numbers were in their quarterly reports which would mean that they cannot (legally) lie about them. But for further evidence you only need to consider Nintendo's long history of conservative decision making and it quickly becomes clear what happened.

That and well, its sort of hard to hide the fact that you are upping production without people noticing, it is not a small scale effort.

edit: Also Reggie stated it takes them 5 months to up production, if they started the process again at the end of August it would likely be at least 3 months before any extra production started showing up so Sep, Oct, and Nov would be the same with December showing maybe an extra 100k total? So that seems highly unlikely especially since they wouldn't have had any time to assess their most recent increase at that point...I just don't think they would up production again without seeing what their most recent changes have done first.

But still an excellent question and a point worth covering.


See the thing is according to the data you supplied since August they had 2.3 million set aside, adding in the 1.8 million for december and you end up with 4.1, much less than the 4.58 they sold in December, now couldn't they have shifted from earlier months you say, unlikely since if you look at VGC numbers they sold 16.24 this year take away 10.6 for July through Decmber according to the data you supplied and you are left with 5.64 million, yet according to VGC the figure for sales is 5,968,442 until the first of July, so they wouldn't have had any supply availible to shift from other months

 

 



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?

 

 


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

Dec - 4.58m (extra: -2.78m) Though it was not stated as such, I interpted it to be like the others in the list, that is, how much was "left over" (or in this case, not enough) after the Dec. 1.8m production was accounted for. Not the 'Total Extra So Far: 2.3m' being added in.

 

@ Sqrl "Bleh, brain-fart moment, my mistake."

Was it? Or was admitting a mistake your mistake! :)

 

 Editted:  Too slow a typer, and things change as I do so.  But there you go.  

 



Torturing the numbers.  Hear them scream.

Avinash_Tyagi on 03 January 2008
Entroper said:
Sqrl said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:

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


Bleh, brain-fart moment, my mistake.


No, you were right.  It's not 4.58 - 2.3, it's 4.58 - Dec production, which is 4.58 - 1.8, which is 2.78, which is what you said.  :)


 Actually 2.3 was the extra from August through November

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

 add in 1.8 for decmeber and you get 4.1, and the other .48 million must have come from earlier months 



 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

superchunk on 03 January 2008
Sqrl said:
superchunk said:
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.

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.

 I think you misunderstood me.

I didn't mean that they were taking stock already sitting in some PAL territory and changing it to come to NA. What I meant that as order for more stock slowed in PAL they didn't up the production for that territory. Instead when they increased to 1.8m/month they simply made more NTSC Wii's for NA. Same with Japan. As it began to slow they simply didn't allocate as many of the newly manufactured units for Japan.

However, after rereading your OP and thinking about the numbers. It makes sense. Nintendo had to have set some stock aside somewhere for the holiday numbers to make sense. 



BKK on 03 January 2008

"The other theory to help account for that 0.48m units is that some of the US supply for January was expedited to arrive early in time for the holidays. This has its limitations as it would be fairly difficult to push more than a week (at absolute most two weeks) worth of production forward, but it could still account for some increase."

Could it not also be that the VGCharts data is slightly off? 0.48M wouldn't seem to be very much especially when considering how difficult it is to track sales in "others". Anyway, we'll get shipped Wii figures for Q4 from Nintendo in a few weeks, so that should clear it up a little more.