It's good that Pachter gave his sphincter a well earned rest and actually said something from his mouth hole...

Pachter was on Game Theory or 1Up or something last year saying the Wii would die down by mid '08. I think he is more desperate not to be wrong more than anything else.

If he is an analyst, I wish he would do more analysis (a ala Source) instead on crystal ball predictions. not really sure what he adds to anything beyond "filler news".

To everyone who thinks this is really far out there:
I can see where you all are coming from, and I agree, to a certain extent, I was just amazed that Pachter said this, because it actually makes some sense. I suppose he can't lose them all.

They still weren't making enough to meet demand. If they were, there wouldn't have been any shortages anywhere, let alone for 15 months, and they wouldn't have to decide to prioritize one territory over another. A Wii collecting dust in any territory costs them money, no matter monetary rates. What this means is simply that the US will be the last of the 3 territories to have it's needs met.

Look at it this way - the dollar/Euro/Yen differential any different for Microsoft or Sony than it is for Nintendo? Of course not! And with more expensive consoles, they'd likely be even more sensitive to the inequality, so they'd be even more likely to overship to the other territories. But have there been sustained shortages of either 360s or PS3s in the last 15 months? No. Just a short blip - maybe a month- for the 360.

nice explantion.
nintendo should just increase production!!
think of all the billions of dollars they are losing b.c of the little production (compared to demand)

cmon nintendo pick up that pace!!
hussle hussle hussle!!

I blame Wii Fit

America has a big advantage over Europe in terms of games sold just because of one single reason:

America has a common language for 300 million people: English!

We, in Europe, don't! A game must be translated at least in 5 languages which means more costs for the producer and longer time to get on the market, with less profits!!! If you sum it up with the fact that in Europe gaming isn't spread evenly because of different cultures (France has roughly the same population of Italy, but it's gaming market is 3-4x of Italy's!!!), you have the whole picture!

That said, an hardware manufacturer (in this case Nintendo) has more intrests on selling console where the currency is stronger, but has fewer intrests on putting the games on the sheves there first because of the reason above!

So if Europe, this time around, is more profitabile HW-wise, America still more important for games and the numbers sold there!

Anyway, Pachter has a good point on this subject and if the European market stabilize itself (Japan has already) in the coming weeks we will see if Nintendo re-allocates sources to America, which could lead to a flood of Wii.

In fact, if the numbers of Wiis sold coming from this very site are correct, Nintendo is making 1.8million per month but there's is no sold out as they sell roughly 350-380K Wiis per week WW, leaving as much as 200K Wiis unsold per month, stockpiling somewhere!!!

As a proof of that Nintendo stated that 24.5M are going to be on the market by the end of fiscal year (which is on the 31st of March, just few days away), but as you can see as of now, only 23M Wii's where sold.

So where are those Wiis?? Sitting on European shelves?? If it is so and if the demand is so high in the USA, why not to reallocate that "missing" 1.5M Wiis in the USA??

Don't you have the minimum suspect that Pachter is right and Nintendo prefere not to sell them immediately, but save them for better times, when USA currency is in better shape?

@Tharthesos:

As some people have said, this looks correct on the surface but doesn't hold much water on closer inspection:

1- it doesn't explain why the Wii has been sold out in America every single week since launch, even when it wasn't sold out anywhere else.

2- Software sales are tied to hardware sales, and, according to this currency theory, they're also more interesting for Nintendo in Europe, since games cost 50 € which is more than $50 even accounting for taxes. If hardware sales are so important for their profit, why don't they launch games such as SSBB earlier? I don't even mean earlier than in USA, just not months later than in USA.

3- Otherwise, if as you said software sales are more profitable in USA, to sell software you need to sell hardware first, and software is certainly more profitable than hardware. This also goes against Nintendo making America suffer from a shortage of Wiis.

The bottom line is that this explanation is at best insufficient, and at worst totally incongruent with reality. Better than typical Pachter, but still not very good.

The simple and IMO correct explanation for the shortages is that Wii demand is higher than expected everywhere in the world, especially so in America. This means that unless production is increased, there's no way supply will be enough in America.

PS: I don't think the stockpiling has anything to do with currencies. It has to do with the necessity of Wiis for the Chinese/Korean launch, Wii Fit launch, holiday season. In other words, the reason for stockpiling is the same as last year's plus the Asian launches.

Don't blame us poor european

Blame Wii Fit !