yeah, I heard great things about that

1. Nintendo has always had high quality hardware, great customer service, and great first party software.

2. (tie) Microsoft had RROD, but they did set aside all that money (one billion if I recall correctly) and extend the warrenty to try and make the problem right.

2. (tie) Sony's PS2 was notorious for disc read errors, and I don't think they ever really did anything to help their customers with the issue. The PS3 seems to be quality hardware though.

Ps2 sales:

2001: 16.5M

2002: 21.6M

2003: 19.2M

2004: 16M

2005: 17.8M

2006: 12.4M

2007: 9.7M

... How the heck is this 25M + each year? It has 1 single year with 20M +, and not a single with 25M +.

You can really only say that it sells 15M + in its years.

Nintendo has 1,102,018 million yen in the till.  http://www.nintendo.com/corp/annual_report.jsp  Sunglasses are for 'small point'. 

I did not realize how loyal Nintendo's customers are.   I thought most people were as fed up with production problems as I am.

I concede the Wiimote is a nice piece of tech, but why is there a shortage of the Wiifit?  Maybe the shortage of the Wiifit will get sorted out, but I see another holiday of "No Wii under the Xmas tree" coming.

They are producing Wiis faster than any console has ever been produced. If they decided to make 35M/year, they would reach a problem when it is saturated, and they won't get anymore sales. Then they would have been stuck with useless factories.

The Wiimote isn't the reason the Wii takes so long to make, just so you know that.

There have been produced 5.5M Wii Fits, in half a year, considering the fact that the Balance Board is as complex as it is, I'd rather be surprised they have made that many.  

As a European, I really have to thank Microsoft for launching the 360 all over the world at the same time. No company ever did this before. I was just tired of waiting months for the same hardware or software Japan and America allready had. Okay, there were shortages at the beginning but that is a risk I am willing to take.

The RROD is an issue, without a doubt. But this is a mistake of MS that has nothing to do with their treatment of gamers.

Sony was not able to deliver the PS3 in time, Europe had to wait 5 months longer than japan or the US.

Nintendo sucks at bringing games to different markets at the same time. Smash Brothers is the perfect example. 5 months (!!!) after japan received it, it finally made its way to Europe.

The 360 video-marketplace in the US is just huge. In Germany it is like "video-marketplac light" Just 110 movies or something are available. In the US there are almost 500 movies and tons of TV shows available.

How can one be fed up with manufacturing capacity at peak levels of human and machine efforts? It takes 6 months to establish a new manufacturing line at a plant like Foxconn and that's only if vendors can supply enough product in that time frame.

It's not like they aren't making well over a million per month (2.4 million as of this month). If problems were held down to just a few hundred thousand, then there would be cause for anger.

WiiFit's production woes could be just the same. The unit uses 4 high end scales. I don't know the vendor for the scales but I guarantee you they've had to manufacture more the past few months than the past decade combined.

Also to consider are that initial retail orders for both Wii Fit (and the Wii itself back in late 2006) were probably much lower than post launch demand meaning manufacturers would have taken that initial retailer demand figure and allocated resources for production based on those numbers. Once launched and demand far exceeds supply, it can be very difficult to reallocate manufacturing resources (that were at that point set aside for other products) to match demand.

There is a lot more to chain of supply than just hitting an increase supply button. Sometimes it means slowing down the production of another companies product to make room for the expansion and that can cause problems.

Keep in mind, Nintendo's loyalty is an earned loyalty. Their customer service has won awards.

Not sure that is true.  Reggie himself said the shortage is the result of Nintendo's inability to forecast demand only last December.  Reggie probably is enough of an insider to know. 

"Nintendo has set earnings forecasts so conservative that they achieved them in just nine months. ...  Nintendo has twice revised its forecast for the number of Wii consoles it expects to sell in its fiscal year ending March 2008, now predicting sales of 17.5 million units, compared with a forecast of 14 million at the beginning of the year. "  http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119697501146616201-n1dQKvjjLIUfVNimLzsdZb3OSLI_20080106.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

"Unable to accurately forecast how many Wiis will be sold in the coming months,"    http://www.reuters.com/article/sphereNews/idUSN1744069920071218?sp=true&view=sphere

And lots more you can google yourself.  They underproduce because they set their forecast too low.

I agree that they do have good customer service -- if you can find their product in stock.  I don't hate Nintnedo -- don't think I am about to burn my Wii or sell it on ebay.  I just think the urge to play is a terrible thing to waste.

they're all the same. they're all huge corporations who follow industry standards in customer service and support. no more and no less. if you actually think any of these 3 actually "cares" about their customers, then i recommend that its time to wake up and smell the roses.

Yes, that was for 2007.   Retail demand, 3rd party interest, etc...all played a role into planning how many units to order for 2007.   Once late 2006/early 2007 rolled around, it was obvious that retailers had undervalued the Wii and publishers underfunded development projects and so they ordered less than consumer demand.

Orders come from retail.  The make as many as retail orders from them unless demand drops and then they are overproducing.

As I mentioned already, it takes 6 months to ramp up production.  They did that.  Later in the year it was pushed to 1.8 million units which was full capacity for every vendor.

Now just over 6 months later again they have the means to pump it up to 2.4 million per month.

You made it sound like they can just throw a switch and up production since they low balled their intial order.   The only order they low balled was late 2006/early 2007 based off the demand from retail.

Everything has been at full capacity for a while now and if you don't want to take my word for it, contact NOA, Foxconn and all their major supply vendors for yourself.