Considering they plan on shipping 5.5 million WW by the end of March I doubt they are only capable of supplying 450k a week right now.  That probably means at least 3 million for the holidays.  If we do work under the idea that it is a complete sellout, then they had only shipped 787k by the start of December.  Therefore they have 2213k for the next 4 weeks basically.  That would be an average of 553k per week through the end of the month.  That is assuming the final week is as high as all the others despite it having only 2 shopping days before Christmas.  If Nintendo were to try and push the supply out earlier and give that last week maybe half of the other weeks that would bring it to 632k for 3 weeks and 317k for the last week.

It wouldn't make sense for Nintendo to give Europe the meager supply you are suggesting.  At that point they should have just delayed the European launch and provided the supply elsewhere since it is supposedly still so constrained.

All of this is of course ignoring the numerous reports that it isn't challenging to find a Wii U if you want one.  The lack of any sort of fervor among the populace trying to desperately get their hands on this allegedly rare item.  As well as probably the most damning evidence, the fact that resellers seem unable to sell Wii U's for any substantial markup.  Not exactly what you'd expect for an item where demand is outstripping supply.

At 450k per week they are on track to build build 23 million units per year. I don't care who the research firm is, or who saw 37 WiiU's in a store with no one being the least bit interested. I can tell you with certainty that Nintendo did not build excess capacity so that they can make more than 450k WiiU's per week. It would make no sense. Europe will be lucky to get 100k WiiU's per week. You don't have to believe me, but you should. The only way companies are able to sell more than their production capacity per week at Christmas is by building up supply during the rest of the year. The math works out wonderfully for wii, crunch some numbers if you get a chance. Nintendo has created enough production capacity to build between 400 and 500k WiiU's per week, just like Wii.

No, but customers of the Premium Version (the black one) get for every Euro spend on the eShop points (8 for every euro I think). For 500 points they get 5 Euro at the E-Shop. I got 126 points for Little Inferno.

https://p.nintendo.net/premium/

While this is certainly nice, it's hardly a game breaker. At least if you're from the US, UK or can import anything from there.

the big present buying games up there now and will stay there,'m off shopping 2moro hopefully pick up a couple of £20 games as they often sell modern ones in the run up to xmas but who knows whats on offer,mayeb dishonoured,will report back on the WiiU that doesn't look good JD4 doing fine though

You realize they didn't start manufacturing them in late November right?  They likely started in late September or early October.  That would mean around 2.25 million manufactured and on ships in time to reach European and American markets for launch.  Japan wouldn't need the same time lag as shipping time from China is significantly shorter.  As a result the Japanese launch would not have an immediate affect on European supply as the WiiUs on store shelves in Europe right now likely left China a month ago.  On the other hand, I rather doubt they actually have manufacturing capabilities of 450k per week.  The Wii only exceded 23.4 million in a single fiscal year.  It wouldn't make financial sense to set up that many lines.  Plus they only intend to ship 5.5 million by the end of the fiscal year.  If they were pumping out 450k a week starting in October, that would be 11.7 million units.

Its a big deal, its why everyone is buying the premium version over the basic version. Go to a store and ask if they have the premium, they sell out the day they come in, ask if they have the basic, and they usually have them a couple days after they come in. The hardcore know the difference, and people aren't afraid of buying online anymore. I believe that 10% back policy is the tipping point for a lot of people.

Hitman seems to be doing nicely

I agree. Although I get this bonus, I buy every game retail, that is available that way. Also was this no reason for me to buy the Premium-edition. I need three more eShop-games the price of Little Inferno to get the 5 Euro bonus, but I will only buy games I think I will like.