There could be endless factors to determine who gets what.... there could be even more theories to try and determine it on our side

My thoughts:

I believe the way Wal-Mart uses the massive buying power they have is to pay lower prices to buy bigger quantities and buy bigger quantities in exchange for best in store placement (which currently goes to Sony). Nintendo would not have to budge on price ATM with Wii OR DS to Wal-mart or anyone else, so my guess is they pass them out in bursts to all companies as Bod described. I think the stores who get extra might be the ones who long supported the big N (even in the dark GC days), and the ones who moved the most software then and now. Walmart & Target both have the shrine to PS3 & PS2 in my area, Sony has massive placement advantage in both chains here in Florida. Best Buy seems to be very 360-centric (Wii being 2nd & PS a distant third at least in visibility). I know they all sell lots of Wii's, but there is definitely a brand that seems to be the display focus at most retailers, TRU would definitely be N.

This could include circulars as well.  

It could also depend on not only who sells the most hardware, but accessoires, software,  and even who pays thier Nintendo invoices fastest...

Another thought, if N is selling to each chain, the large amount of wal-mart stores might mean each store gets a smaller shipment, to keep a steady flow going through all chains.   

There are many factors that go into who gets what in a seller's market.

You see the opposite of this with Sony, as it is DEFINITELY a buyers market at this point.

So I thought I should let you guys know this. I bought Trauma Center: NB, RE:UC, and Fire Emblem online during the Buy 2 get 1 free sale. As of right now, the only game that has been shipped is Fire Emblem. This morning, TRU cancelled my order of Trauma Center and credited $50 back to my account. So I essentially got Buy 1 Get 1 free. I wouldn't be surprised if they cancel RE:UC though. Under status it says "Back Ordered" and the game doesnt even appear on the website anymore. This is really weird. I may just get a free game out of this. At any rate, it doesnt really matter. I will buy those 2 games regardless. Just wondering if this happened to anyone else.

Wow, I prepurchased Nights & Brawl using this sale online, I wonder if I just get a full refund and got my (already shipped) MOH:H for free?

I don't think they have those kinds of deals here in Europe. Even then, I'd probably not be interested, I really don't want to support the format war with my money. If a player was 100-150 € and offered some free movies, maybe I would buy one then, but not before that (assuming the format war wasn't over yet).

What kind of Demographics are there for the Xbox360, Wii, DS, PSP and Playstation3?

The deals here are typically $98 or $99 + 5 free movies. This has been the deal for both the HD-A2 and the HD-A3. I bit on the first because the HD-A2 is a high end HDMI/Optical DVD player and HD-DVD player, and I needed a new good DVD player anyway.

I have no reason to really care about the format war, but if I can watch a bunch of high def movies for free (netflix charges no extra to get HD-DVDs or BDs) I mind as well.

Really then I'm curious, how does this site estimate how many Wiis Wal-Mart sells in the month?  I'm not saying they all get the same shipments in the same week or anything, just that it seems logical to me that with an item that appears to sell out everywhere and not one that has different demand based on region that Wal-Mart stores would each get an equal distribution of them over the long term. 

It's a LOT more complicated then that, you use historical sources and shipping numbers to estimate demand in stores you don't have access to.  I mean how do you think NPD tracks Wal-Mart?

Tracking sales is a very very complicated thing to explain unless you have an intricate backround in statistics.

There are so many factors one has to take into account it's staggering.

Most likely, they have historical data on the statistical bias of each store that they receive data from, and calculate the total value based on weights (i.e. multiplicative factors) derived from that data. Each correction made to the sales data probably also changes those weights in order to improve future accuracy.

What I can assure you of, is that it's not just a simple matter of multiplying one store's values by the number of stores. That would generate much worse accuracies than we've seen at vgchartz.

If people don't stop antagonizing Legend, I'm just going to stop posting in this thread. Let's try to stay on topic, please: he asked a perfectly legitimate question.

I worked again today: sold just an amazing amount of DS, because we have a "bundle" going on where you get the system and 1 Petz game (Dogz, Dolphinz, Catz, Hamsterz or Horsez) for 149.99. I'm probably selling 15 DSes a day right now, or 100+ a week. 

I sold a 360 Arcade to someone today, and I'm now officially out of all 360 models. Waiting on another shipment!

I sold my last (presumably forever) 60 GB PS3 as well. I'm out of 60 and 80 GBs, have only 40 GBs left now, until another shipment arrives. Quite a few of those, however. I'm not sure how this works in other stores, but the 60 and 80 GBs are definitely more popular here - however, this could be because I always emphasize to customers that the 40 GB cannot play PS2 games. Yes, this does tend to be a pretty big deal to a lot of people, but it's quite possible other stores see different reactions or that they simply don't bother explaining it all to people (I often spend 2-3 minutes talking to customers about their different options). 

Uncharted is still selling quite well at my store. Other than Guitar Hero, it's definitely the best selling game on the PS3 thus far at my store.

Rock Band is a dud here. I've sold... 8 bundles total? About that, across both platforms.

Starting to get Wii games back in (got 11 titles back in today), I'll start informing people how those sell again shortly. As I said, it's been difficult to gauge interest when we were out of virtually every title people wanted.