@TheBigFatJ ^^

Agree. I've mentioned it here before, that I don't understand the stockpiling scenario either, because it only hurts their bottom line to warehouse something they could be selling today, plus losing software sales from now until Christmas. If Wii owners purchase one game a month or even one every other month, that means consoles that were "banked" in April to be held for the holidays would be holding back sales of about four or five software titles per potential buyer. This would negatively effect the sales of current titles like Super Paper Mario, Zelda, and Excite Truck, which by Christmas will likely be discounted as Player's Choice titles in the $29.99 price range. That's a lot of money and momentum to throw away.

I think the more likely scenario is that Nintendo simply can't just wave a wand and say, "Hey look, we're making more consoles!" It takes MONTHS to sift through builders/assembly partners, tool machines, and produce consoles. FOXCONN simply can't meet the demand, and it isn't as simple as Ninty saying, "Hey, make more!" Also, each non-JP release that includes Wii Sports is hand boxed -- at least they were according to a statement from a few months back.

They very well could have looked into increasing production around February or March, but that doesn't mean more consoles just suddenly appear. We will probably begin seeing the resulting increase in units in August or September.

I don't know much about the manufacturing process, but I think it's an unreasonable assumption for so many to think, "oh, it's only a million units.  Why don't they just make more?"  A million is a lot.  I would be interested to learn more about the manufacturing process and how long it takes to set up a plant or increase capacity in a plant or even what's involved with decreasing production to, say, 50% capacity.  This stuff is fundamental to understanding the numbers of a supply constrained console, and yet there seems to be very little understanding of it.

It's over simplistic to say they can just open up new factories and start producting more units. You also have to deal with dozens of subcontracters that have to deliver components as well. If any of those subcontractors fail to supply parts, the whole production line stops.

In addition you also have to hire and train additional support staff to handle the increase in user base. Nintendo is known to have high standards when it comes to support, so they will spend more time and effort to adequately train and resource their employees. To simply toss out millions of Wii into the world without proportional support increases could be a disaster.

If it is true they kept 500 000 wii's stockpiled from march to now, then there will be 7X500000=3.5 million wii's for thanksgiving/christmas, including the normal 1 million that would be 4.5 million, if they manage to sell all those wii's in november/december, and if they manage to break the 12 million barrier before november, they would have a tremendous 16.5 million sold units by the end of the year, if not more.

And I can imagine Nintendo releases some additional stockpiled wii's for the launch of Dragon Quest Swords in Japan.

Well this article hit the frontpage on Digg...helllooo lag.

Ah, I stand corrected. Thanks for clearing that up.

Oh Oh, I know. I would sell just as bad as the PS3 due to high cost of manufacution and price.

As far as an actual prediction, I say late August early September

The rea question is, how many consoles will Halo 3 push. I bet a lot of people bought a 360 just for Halo 3.

 I think they are just stoclpiling and there is a really good reason for doing that...holiday season is a key period for the console business... and if you do not meet demand at that period of time... that demand would shift over another console... so Nintendo cannot let themselves lose potential buyers due to the fact that the do not have shipped a great amount of consoles...

 Besides, there are also 2 important dates in america (that we know of, and i think SSBM would be realeased late sept. early oct. ) that need to be well supplied in other to attract a lot of the so-called "hardcore audience" and those dates are jul. 31st and aug. 27th. I think between those weeks we would see a great increase in wii units available... maybe like 2m would be sold only in US between the launch of Mario Strikers and one week after the launch of Metroid Prime... and also we have to take into account japan's launches... like DQ: Swords, Mario Strikers, MP3, FF:CC... 

Again, no smart business would "hold" any type of good in inventory if they can make a profit selling it. Prices in electronics never go up. They always come down. I would be willing to bet a significant sum that they are simply shipping everything they can make. It's what businesses do.

... and if there weren't any stockpiled, and they were instead sold as they were built, there would still be 16.5 million units sold by December, PLUS another 15M units of software if all those Wii buyers bought one game every other month. That's 750 MILLION (USD) of lost software sales.

You don't build an electronics device/appliance to not sell it.