I agree. Nintendo should sell all Wiis at cost so that ebay resellers can make all the profit instead of Nintendo.

Every company requires profit, but companies also look at different manners in which to get achieve it.

Compare Rockstar to Nintendo. Rockstar created GTA4, a game that required a massive amount of resources, and realised a fantastic vision the like which has never been fathomed before. Nintendo are content with their low budget games like Wii Play. Knocked up to get as much profit as they can without pushing the industry foward. Mario pasted left, right and centre, nothing new.

Cheap ass hardware that's over priced for what's offered.

The irony of your insults toward Nintendo and your avatar are not lost upon us.

If you assume Nintendo isn't pushing the industry forward, perhaps you're looking toward left field when the hit went right field. It's still forward, you're just playing the wrong side of the field.

How about another piece of consumer electronics with a similar price tag that had demand that high after 18 months?

new iPods, Cell phones, the Gameboy advanced. Having shortages for 1.5 years simply doesn't happen for consumer electronics. There is nothing so complicated in there that you cannot up the production pretty fast if you are willing to pay. (Especially when you do not use some fancy new technology like BluRay or the smallest chip structures but true and tested core components)
Its of course possible that it would lower their margins a bit but seriously this gets ridiculous.

Kyros said: Name another console that has demand this high after 18 months, and I'll grant you the point. How about another piece of consumer electronics...

I guess you can't, then.

It seriously amazes me that people are under the impression that increasing production is a matter of pressing a button or signing a check.

It would be a massively stupid move for nintendo to reduce the Wii's price right now. A company's whole purpose is to be as profitable as they can be. If Sony/MS could have sold their products at high levels for the last 18-24months for their launch prices, they would have.

However, both companies realized need to reduce price to hopefully permanently increase their sales rate, and thus overall increase profits. Nintendo could have probably launched at $300 and still have been as successful as they are now.

On top of that, if I had bought a launch PS360, i'd be kinda pissed knowning that 6 mos. later I could have gotten a better version for a much lower cost. At least with my Wii I know I paid a fair price for the product. In fact, like the DS, if the sales stay this high, we probably won't see a price cut until its successor is finally realized...or the PS3 hits $250, which will probably be the same time frame.

Understanding the complexities of any system requires both time and effort, two things which people are rightly stingy about how they use them. There's nothing inherently wrong about being ignorant, but as the original poster has so graciously demonstrated, being arrogant about things you are ignorant about leads to problems.

Actually, Kryos, there were plenty of components that couldn't not be manufactured any faster.

Analog Devices were pumping out accelerometers for the Wii-mote at their maximum rate. STMicroelectronics was doing the same for the accelerometers in the nun-chuck. The same goes for MoSys and their 1T-SRAM, Mitsumi's Wi-Fi, etc...

Basically you're talking about several hundred vendors pushing through product faster than any of them ever has before and you think all of them can just magically flip a switch to increase production equally?

Desroko said: Kyros said: Name another console that has demand this high after 18 months, and I'll grant you the point. How about another piece of consumer electronics... I guess you can't, then. It seriously amazes me that people are under the impression that increasing production is a matter of pressing a button or signing a check.

It's not as big a deal as some people seem to think either. Opening up a factory would cost money, probably a lot of money. It might satisfy their short term goals i.e. the next year, but not their long term goals over the next 5-6 years. Perhaps they believe that demand will not outstrip supply in numbers or amount of time to justify the knock to their profits.

"I believe that something must be wrong if we conduct our business with the premise that we will need to cut prices of our hardware as time goes on"

This is the sentence I have a problem with. It's not whether they cut the price now, but say in 4 years time, if it's still selling as this price i'd be pissed. Out of date tech should go down in price to reflect such.

Wii sports is only like $10, how low do you want it to be? Wii games sell $10-20 less than launch PS360 games anyway. Can you explain to me what business thrives without desiring profits?