I sense a little bit of the old leo in this post. gotta love the nostalgia.

Leo-J, you knuckle-head. We are "expecting too much" from the Wii? That's silly, and so are you. Nobody thinks the Wii demand will outstrip supply forever, however, it will for the forseeable future, and possibly until saturation.

Now, let me explain:

1. You aren't the first person to say "You guys are expecting too much from the Wii." You're just the only one who would dare to say it now, after it pwnd all the guys who said it before you.

2. You say "from the Wii" when you should say "from console sales in general." It's like you refuse to acknowledge that the Wii is the best selling console in history and that it has a chance to continue to be.

3. You expect far more from much more unbelievable things, like the MGS4 bundle. You said that the PS3 would outsell the Wii by 200,000 units worldwide when MGS4 is released. I don't think you're hoping for a perfect storm week of the Wii not getting supply either. You're saying that the PS3 MGS bundle will sell, what, 600,000 PS3's the week its launched?

Are you not expecting too much from MGS?

It's foolish for you to keep doubting the Wii when it has proved you and your hopes wrong, time and time again. Isn't everything you say pro-PS3 wishful thinking?

Are we supposed to take you seriously when we know that all your predictions are based on what you hope could happen in your best case scenerio for Sony?

You telling us that we expect too much from the Wii is what makes us dislike your posts. It's fine to be a fanboy on this site, most people are and we're cool about it. Stop trying to act so undercover with it, and stop pretending its outside the realm of possibility for the Wii to surpass your expectations, because Jesus man, when has it not surpassed your expectations?

Drop the act.

Isn't Ninty making 1.8 million consoles per month? if I'm right that would mean from April-December they will make 16.2 Million consoles.

Add the current 23.06 million to 16.2 million and you get 39.26 million which is the maximum assuming the wii sells every single console it makes (which I doubt).

So unless they increase production your 40+ million predictions are literally/mathematically impossible.

I say the wii ends up with about 32-26 Million end of year.

 You don't think they're going to increase production?

You are not taking into account the time it takes to get a produced console onto the shelf, the consoles that were made about six weeks ago are probably only now getting to the shop shelves.... So what you should say is 20.13 (shipped before 2008) and add that to ten and a half months of production, which comes out to 39.03 million.

However that doesn't take into account any air-shipping if Nintendo needs to do so once more, and if they need to do that then you can take 4 weeks off that shipping time, and thus add 1.8 million more, making 40.83.

Then take into account any stock left on shelves and the total sales should make just over 40 million if supply/demand situation is similar to last year.

So basically, the minimum for sales with current demand and production is 40 million.
If demand drops (which it shows no signs of) then Nintendo might not air-ship supply and the shipped number would equal only 39.03 million, and the shelf stock might be at maximum 1.5 million, making 37.5 million sales

For the total sales to be any lower than 37.5 million demand should have already shown signs of slowing, because demand does not drop as quickly as leo-j is hoping.

---------

Of course if Nintendo announces a production increase before 2009 then that number only gets bigger, but 37.5 million is a reasonable minimum of sales.... anyone being pessimistic but still wanting to be realistic would have to say 37.5 million., because that is the absolute worst case scenario.

(edited for logical inconsistencies and typing errors)

I didn't say they wouldn't, in fact they probably will because it would be smart.

Thats just as of right now.

^production rate is not increased/decreased by each months demand, if they could do that then there would never be any supply shortages, so there is no way they would increase it now and decrease it later this year.

Read my reply to you, as I said the minumum realistic expectation is 37.5 million, barring any Wii factory natural disaster anyway.

Let me play devil's advocate.  Here are Japan's Wii sales.

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=Japan&cons2=Wii&reg2=Japan&cons3=Wii&reg3=Japan&start=39089&end=39530 

Still trending down for the year, and with the Japanese economy being as it is, why would a cautious Japanese company want to raise production levels?

Alright, that's all I got for that side.

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=America&cons2=Wii&reg2=Japan&cons3=Wii&reg3=Total+Other&start=39089&end=39530

Other looks to be starting to go again.  And America runs out of product every other week or so. The possibility of new markets (Korea, China?), still have the kids and the faithful fans.  Adding to that the soccer mom's for WiiFit, other young females (Cooking Mama, Animal Crossing) and how many retirement homes are there in the world anyway?

 They will raise production.  But as always, by just a bit more, like the other bumps in production, which were about 20-25% a piece as I recall.

*grins* at TWRoO  "no way they would increase it now and decrease it later this year."    What don't you think that they like to have shortages just around the holidays?  Perhaps not.

One conclusion can be reached, assuming the VGC numbers are reliable enough for a realistic estimate. The Wii has not been selling at a rate of 1.8m per month at a direct rate of Nintendo's current stated production of 1.8m/mo.

Assuming the Wii has another strong 400k week to wrap up the month of March, that is 4.136m for the first quarter of 2008. Well under the 5.4m that would be seen with a 100% sell through, with no withheld stock and no stock currently held up in distribution channels on the way to retail outlets.

Of course seeing a 5.4m for Q1 2008 is unrealistic because Nintendo has been shifting stock levels from the three major markets cyclically, and it is assumed that there should be some skimming off of inventory levels in preparation for Q4 2008 sales. More should be added to that stock during Q2 2008 despite the release of MK, which should have a fair effect on hardware sales comparable to Brawl to a lesser extent. Not more.

But that is still over 1 million units sold below current production rates regardless of whether they are being stockpiled or currently held up in distribution channels.

If Nintendo increases production, it is a safe bet to say production rates will not be dropped off prior to Q4 due to the lag time that occurs between an announced production increase and the time that extra production reaches retail outlets. If they increase, it will be sustained leading into Q1 2009.

The question is what will be the rate of production increase if any. Next week will provide the telling facts when the quarterly report is released.

Even with a slight production increase, 40-41m is still a reasonable estimate, even assuming a near 100% sell through. 32-33m by the end of Q3, keeping mind there will always be a discrepancy between production rate and sell through rate. 2008 will be another great year for Nintendo without question, but many of the expectations being posted remain unrealistically optimistic.

Many still exceed the annual projections released by Nintendo considerably. If these were genuine expectations, those with the extremely bullish estimates would be buying as many shares of Nintendo as they could get their hands on as that would mean they are saying the stock price is undervalued in proportion to the gap between their estimates and Nintendo's estimates.

Wait for another week for that report. Those who genuinely believe their estimates, should be doubling down on Nintendo's ADR now at $65 if they didn't already do so back in mid January when it stumbled and was trading in the mid $50s.

^Well we know that a good chunk of production that would normall have been shipped in the last three months was in fact shipped earlier to help with Christmas stock. I would guess about a million myself.

what was produced in late November and December would normally not have been "shipped" until January, however a lot of that was shipped faster, and unless they continued to ship at that same rate that would deplete the number that can be shipped fo Jan-March.