http://wii.ign.com/articles/846/846613p1.html

Iwata says in the interview all of their shortages are due to the sales predictions they came up with 6 months ago, when you put it in their point of view it makes a lot of sense, you have so much money you can spend (6 months ago) and you've got to make sure you turn a profit, if you produce too many you will lose a lot of the profit you've already gained.  Most likely they didn't think it would stay sold out year round and went with a safe number, but in the interview he expresses how his and the company both want the consumers to be happy so it may be safe to assume they will most likely take more risks with supply over last year, I believe the scars of the GameCube were fresh in their minds still when coming up with those predictions, but now they shouldn't worry about the past and should focus on the market now.

Read up and give your thoughts, cheers!

Interesting interview but there wasn't a whole lot of meat to it. I would love to see the full transcript since it seems like its highly edited in that article.

I agree, I think they will take more risks to try to meet demand this year.

The man can afford to be super positive. I think I would be too, in his position. And I think he's right to feel sad. The machine is selling faster than any other in history and would make Nintendo even more money if they had more of the things to sell. Nintendo doesn't want to have too few consoles, because it really does mean more money lost to other forms of entertainment.

The man can afford a lot of things =P

You could say he has "giraffe money". Which for those who have never heard the term is "Enough money that he could legitimately inquire as to the price of a giraffe."

Did anyone think there was another explanation? Isn't this precisely what we all thought anyway?

Nintendo set production based on their estimations for demand. That estimation was vastly under real demand. Thus, that estimation was a mistake.

Or, put in less fancy speak, Nintendo made a mistake by not producing more Wiis. That's what we've been saying for months, so doesn't this simply confirm what we've been saying for months?  

tag for later...

Iwata replied, "This year we will release a new system. That is, of course, a joke."
Lol this is funny, for one second I thought DS2 is coming :)

"This year, we'll try a number of things to keep the game population expansion continuing."

Hm, I wonder...

I wish thee article was better written. But at least we get some explanation about the shortage. I have, to this day, believed they were not trying to keep anything back. I mean, nobody can say they would have predicted Wii would sell almost twenty million by 2008 in 2006.

They deserve more accolades than they get.