I have said it before, and I'll say it again...

They are probably holding some back for the sake of being able to ship them to the areas where the demand is most likely to meet supply. They don't want a situation where there are stockpiles in the US while there shortages in Japan or vice versa, so they are observing the trends.

Just out of the nature of my post being rational and coming from academic experience with global supply. I know that my post will be ignored and the flame wars will continue back and forth saying things like: "Stock piling for major releases" (where were they for MP8 in JPN, and Strikers in NA?) "No, no, no; teh Wii is doooooomed." (Then why is it still out selling the competition?)

edit: bleh gonna wait for ioi to finish the numbers

@ioi: Do I trust your numbers more than you are? :) Yes i know there are fluctuations, but the Wii is supply constraint, so down going numbers could mean less supply. Less supply does mean something. If the Wii drops in Europe I wouldn't do a thread like this, because in Europe are no supply problems.

The Wii is extremely easy to get where I am now (Eastern Canada). In fact I went shopping today and Wal-Mart had the bottom of it's Wii display cabinet stuffed full of Wiis (usually they had 2-3 in the cabinet every other time I've went in the last 2-3 weeks. Also ohter stores has a fair amount as well. It's strange because I keep hearing about the shortage but demand seems to have been met where I am.

I think the Wii will start to slow down in NA during the off peak seasons and will boost high in the holidays. It would have to slow down a little soon and start to normalize. It's had a great sprint. But it's how you steady yourself to win the race.

This is not a sprint it's a marathon. They have the lead, they just need to stay on track. *fanboy part* Because soon the PS3 will be catching up (08) and the Wii won't wanna run out of breath. The ps3 teh beast :P

Well it did 250k this week (14th best week ever, out of 38 including launch). Pretty safe to say this is just fluctuation for now. In fact I am quite sure it will be down around 230k next week, it's well within its normal pattern.

Instead of thinking at the retail level, let's take a look at production level. There's no way to output exactly 1M wii every month on the mark. There are things called efficiency and production yields. I can 100% guarantee that in the production line, each production manager will have an output "goal" or "target" they plan to reach. For whatever reasons, component suppliers late in delivery, or supplier component yields are less, therefore there's a component constraint in production. Machine down time, human error that triggers an event to stop production and resume only after the problem has been diagnosed and fixed to prevent repeat of the problem (or at least minimize it). They may, or may not be stockpiling, but IMO, most likely it's just fluctuations in production yields. And remember, even after it comes off the production line, there's Quality Control, and packaging, shipment. If there's dents and what not on the box while it is still in Nintendo's posession, the receivers will probably return it to the manufacturer or just reject the item, due to it not passing the "receiving quality."

 Obviously stealing the thunder from the other guys but even more its a business strategy that makes your stock price increase.   Notice how the demand for Wii has helped propel Nintendo to become the 5th largest company in Japan by market capitalization?   the people at Nintendo do two things and they do them incredibly well.  Make incredible games and make an incredible amount of money.

When considering why a company does something you must look at both the consumer side and the business side.