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Groucho said:
I think you need to read what I said a little closer. =)
And, by Nintendo's own account, they won't be able to put enough units on store shelves to beat 41 million units before Jan 1st. Nintendo currently supplies a little less than 600K units/week (2.4mil/month) -- there are 9 weeks (two months -- i.e. 4.8 million units, assuming Nintendo's production was at 2.4mil a couple months back where, in terms of time, the supply chain begins for current on-shelf units). With current VGC data, that means that Nintendo cannot even have put enough units in the supply chain to hit the 41 mil mark by Jan 1st, unless they have some mighty big stockpiles.
We saw last year a huuuge jump just before the end of December, as the full Nintendo supply train unloaded itself onto store shelves just as the end of December hit. I don't believe we will see such a leap this year (not in terms of proportion, anyway), due to the Wiis eternal popularity, and the inability of Nintendo to actually create a stockpile situation this year (because they have been doing a good job keeping the Wiis coming all year, and haven't created the issues that caused last year's jump), given the huge demand (weekly demand is up something like 75% over last year).
Only time will tell if the Nintendo elves are actually making the 3-4 million / month to hit the numbers you're looking for, but tell us in public statements that they are cranking out 2.4 mil/month instead. Those sneaky business types, wanting to "surprise" the stockholders. Stockholders love misinformation, you know. ;)
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Yes stockholders hate to be misinformed. So how do you reconcile your theory with Nintendo's announcement to their stockholders that as of March 31st 2009 51million units will have been shipped to retail?
Subtract 2.4 million per month and you will see that they most certainly have the stock to get 43.8 million units to retail by December 31 2008. If the demand exists, they almost certainly will use the same strategy as last year and rush delivery of January stock so it arrives in December; if there is the demand, Nintendo can almost certainly sell 45 million by the end of the year.
The thing you seem to be missing in your calculations is that Nintendo has never sold 2.4 million wiis in a month since they announced production had been upped to that. All those units aren't just lost to the wind, they have been stockpiled so they can flood the market this Christmas.
If the wii is sold out everywhere this Xmas expect the frontpage of VGC to say at least 45 million on Jan 1.
