As I understand it, it's still very hard to find a Wii on US shelves. In the UK it has been easy for some time now. Retailers have even started to bundle free games with Wiis as they have been doing with the PS3 and 360 for a while. For example, Amazon is throwing in a free copy of Mario Kart Wii (which is also in short supply in the US) and Dixons is giving away Super Smash Bros Brawl with each Wii. It's great to see that the UK supply problem has been well and truly cracked but it looks like Nintendo has gone too far when the US is still suffering a shortage. What exactly is Nintendo doing?

Well, by reading your post, the only reason I could think of is that Nintendo has been sending Wiiss and Mario Karts to the UK instead of US ^_^ lol.

I hope this supply constraint ends by the holiday season.

Exactly, and my post is asking why. It seems crazy to ship Mario Kart to the UK in order to give it away free when it could be sold at full price in the US.

Aren't games and consoles more expensive on Europe? And if I remember correctly Mario Kart is very popular there.

 It's easy really. Keep the amount of shipped consoles low and increase demand. When a holiday season hits increase the amount of consoles by a bit, but only enough to keep the demand going, until the inevitable price drop.

Yeah but stuff gets heavily discounted fairly quickly provided there's no shortage. MK Wii can be bought on its own for £29.97 from Tesco (the UK's biggest supermarket chain) which is £10.03 off the RRP. And in this instance Amazon are giving it away for nothing.

There are loads of Wii bundle deals and the console can be bought on its own for £20 off RRP.

Contrast that with Wii Fit which still has huge waiting lists and still sells for well over its RRP.

Why would they apply that only to the US and flood the UK market with Wiis so that they're selling below the RRP?

I've heard that the weak dollar is to blame.

do you remember last xmas? 2 million wiis were sent to the us a week before xmas and it sold out in less then a day. tyhe demand is astounding in the us righ tnow and they dont know how much of a demand it really is yet.