I don't see demand increasing personally because of where I live. My town has a population of 25-30k and 5 stores to purchase electronics, they do not even have a space for the Wii, nor a price tag because every store sells out within hours if not minutes. My guess is I will have to wait till holidays to land one semi-conviently.

I agree it will depend on if Nintendo manages to accumulate stock before those games launch. Either they've been diverting say 10% for example of all Wiis to storage and plan to ship them for the holiday period, or demand drops to sub-supply levels and picks up again when they come out, or else sales will continue as they have. Oh and then there's the possibility of a huge bump in supply right before they release the big games. Demand is still insane and supply hasn't grown that much, so I imagine they're planning something big behind the scenes.

Considering Smash and Mario will launch closer to the holiday season, and Wii supply has never been consistent nor met demand, it will be basically impossible to judge how much of an increase is thanks to Smash or Mario. Nintendo will probably ship more Wiis to America for the Metroid launch, and see a spike in sales. Aside from Madden, I think Metroid could be the top game on any platform for the month of August, at least for first-week numbers (Brain Age 2 will likely be bigger in the long run). Unless Guitar Hero III comes in August...? I have no idea if Too Human will sell well, but it looks like that is the other big August game.

The Ebay prices have been dropping steadily and right now a Wii just sold for $255. http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Nintendo-Wii-Game-Console-GAMES-FAST-SHIPPING_W0QQitemZ110133265315QQihZ001QQcategoryZ62054QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem There was shipping and handleing so the buyer was willing to pay $287.49 which is still a bit more than the price of the Wii. However, I watched the eBay prices of the PS3 after it launched. After the initial insanity stopped they were selling at about $900. Once the price hit $600 then they started becoming findable in stores This hasn't exactly happened with the Wii, or it would be findable right now, but about 2 months ago people were willing to pay $350 for one. Demand is clearly falling closer to supply. The question is, will it continue to fall enough to prevent the Wii from being sold out?

Metroid Prime 3 is coming out August 20. I think it would be wise for them to finish Mario Galaxy in September or October.  Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario and Sonic at the Olympics(which will be huge, mark my words) could help them near the holiday season.

I don't see any signs of Wii's demand falling below supply. So as far as I can tell Nintendo will sell as many as they make throughout this year. If that means 1.5m through August, and then bump up production again to 2m until sometime in 2008. People that want it for these games should try to find a wii now as they will just be pissed off when these games come out and they can't find a wii anywhere except ebay.

It may also be that people who still want a Wii have decided it's been long enough of a wait that it is no longer worth paying $100-150 extra to shorten it.  Especially if they aren't planning on gaming much over summer and with Christmas (at which point they probably expect to be able to buy a Wii in store) getting closer by the day.

When these games are release, Nin nerds will be in heaven.

When these games are released, people who had a chance to pick up a Wii will be thanking the heavens that they don't have to wait for hours due to the mass amounts of people now buying the sytem.

When those games are released what will happen is the audience will start to be more evenly split between the Hardcore gamers and the new expanded audience gamers. That is when the third parties should do an all out release of their games like Manhunt 2, or RE UC, and etc. Those games will sell best IMO during THIS holiday season. All of the new Hardcore gamers will be coming out now.

Pandemonium. And record sales. John Lucas