The supposed supply of Wii and Wii Fit for the holidays, or even for Black Friday is largely mostly gone according to my own informal online survey.

I went to Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Gamestop, Target, Walmart and New Egg checking to see if I could buy either a console or Wii Fit:

Amazon (associated sellers only)              Wii – lowest $330      Wii Fit- lowest $144
Best Buy              Wii (online) NA (Store) NA                          Wii  Fit (online) NA (Store) NA
Circuit City           Wii (online) NA (Store-sample) NA*        Wii  Fit (online) Bundle $129  (Store) NA*
Gamestop           Wii (online) (Store) Available $249           Wii  Fit (online) Pre-Order  (Store) ?*
New Egg              Wii (online) Bundle  $400                              Wii  Fit (online) NA
Target                   Wii (online) NA (Store) NA                          Wii  Fit (online) NA (Store) NA
Walmart               Wii (online) NA (Store) NA*                       Wii  Fit (online) NA (Store) NA*

(*note: store available on sample selection)

 VC Chartz links also sold out

Result, if I were trying to purchase either a Wii , I’d better order from Gamestop or be in my car heading down to the local Gamestop. If I want Wii Fit, I'd have to settle for an overpriced bundle.

Looks like there may be another shipment Dec. 5, hope it’s a big one!

I wouldn't be surprised

I guess they keep their Black Friday stock for the actual Black Friday. But yeah, the rest of the christmas stock may be gone already.

I'm sure the stock for Black Friday is safely stored away in retailers' warehouses.

There is stockpiling going on at several levels (Nintendo, retailers and maybe distributors).

Supply can't be gone if Nintendo is supposed to ship an additional 5 million plus consoles by the end of the year.

It would be closer to 8 million more by the end of the year, assuming some of the more enthusiastic guestimates being made on VGC.

Either they sell the approximate 43 million total that should be produced by the end of the year based upon overall sales back in July prior to the latest production increase, plus 14.4m for six months at about 2.4m / month, or you are making the assumption Nintendo mislead investors about the current rate of production.

I'm still seeing them in stores every time I go out. I expect to see stock depleted come Friday, but based on the rate of production alone, it's a given Nintendo will continually be sending out large shipments over the next 5 weeks. Come Friday, there is no "withholding stock" as Nintendo will want to sell every console produced.

I've never understood the idea of stockpiling. From the sellers point of view, a sale is a sale, what difference does it make when. I would think most businesses facing a questionable and almost certainly disappointing season would take any sale they can get, as soon as they could get it.

Can someone explain.

good that thing has been selling like crazy Wii needs to let others catch up

Lets say you have 100 Wii's to sell, and you sold them the week ending Oct 31. Now, that is 100 units sold (probably for christmas) but the person buying it was ONLY looking for a Wii.

Now, lets say you save all 100 of those units and instead sell them on Black Friday. Well, you now have 100 units to advertise that you have them. And you get 1000 crazy people all waiting at your door 1AM in the morning. Not only do they run into your store to grab the Wii's, but they will probably buy a lot of other things too.

Also, the 900 people that came into your store who were hopeing to get one may end up picking up other items.

Essentially, the money is more loose so you want to have the hot items around the holidays  rather then other times of the year.

They should slow down the amount of Wii's being sent to Japan and allocate them here in the USA, where this holiday is so much more important for sales.

As for the stockpiling, there is one day where most people will want to buy those Wiis all at once (Black Friday) so retailers must stockpile to meet the demand. That is the day where they could actually sell all the stock they have left.

People on Black Friday have more money to spend. The trick is to get them inside your store. That's why you hold the most desirable items and discount for Black Friday, because that will attract people to your store.

In addition, if people find what they want on Black Friday this year, they will be more likely to return to the same store the next year. If everything they want is out of stock, they'll likely change to a different store next year. So you want to have the best merchandise available to the customer.