I think that it may be better to look at, say, a moving 3 week average to judge the trend. It might give a better overview than the ups and downs from week to week.

Not sure why we are using the MC number only considering the site we are on, but thats fine they are reliable enough for me. So no big deal.

Anyways back on topic: If you look one week further back you see this for MC #'s....

This shows pretty clearly that all consoles were up in sales 3 weeks ago and have gone down the last two weeks with the exception to a 10% correction for the PS3. This clearly goes deeper than just a Wii issue alone.

Edit: Right click and "View Image" to see the portion cut off. 

Crap! It is only selling double of PS3.

that's what i was just gonna say, people need to stop singling out the wii here. Last week sales for all consoles were down quite a bit, this week all sales were down except for PS3, but PS3 had bladestorm that did suprising well, it even had a bundle (suprised me).

Another thing to remember is that the Wii in one year in Japan will sell about what the Gamecube did in 5 years. That's a torrid pace and is going to have some weeks that are essentially breather weeks. Nintendo is very lucky that in these slow weeks the Wii is still selling over twice the competition and the DS dips just below 6 digits.

Nintendo has saturated Japan with Wiis to an degree unlike any other region. They've shipped proportionally over twice as many Wiis to Japan as the US (despite the N64 and GCN selling about 25% more porportionally in the US). The launch fever seems to have died down there, a record 10 months and a record first year later, so now it's time for the Wii to sell like every other successful system, on its games. Perhaps that's why Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit are going there first.

Its obviously a supply issue IMO. You find me someone in Japan who can walk into a store, and easily pick up a Wii. Even a single report of that would make huge news - and it hasn't happened.

1/ Diversion to the US (funny how US weekly figures have gone up by about the same amount that Japan has gone down).

2/ Stockpiling for Xmas.

Don't forget that the reversed happened for MP8/DQS - US units were diverted to Japan. Makes sense that Ninty would do this whenever there is a big release in any territory.

Galaxy launches in *only* 6 weeks. If hardware doesn't go up for that week, I think you can call it a supply issue ;)

Some people from NeoGAF who live in Japan can easily go to their stores and get one now. They're still selling well, but not longer constantly selling out like they were. C'mon now, it's not a crime to finally hit near the saturation point for shipments after 10 months now, is it? :)

No, No, No. Shipping here and there more or less units just don work on a week by week basis. AND the demand in Europe is met. Thats just something a lot of people here on the board seem to forget. Europe has no supply problems on the Wii. You can get it everywhere, anytime. My guess is, that this so in all PAL countrys.

And i don't think that the Units in America are Japanese. I don't think you can change the production week by week. Those are units from the increased production. The drop off means most likely that the Wii will be starting to be availably in Japan, sharky is mentioning that it is not sold out anymore, and I believe that, at least for some regions or shops. 2 or 3 similar slow weeks and the Wii could finally be broadband available in Japan. That would leaves only America with supply problems and is it likely that the production increase goes right way to America. Seems that I was not so far of, with predicting the Wii sells 120 k at end of august/begin of September. And i expect much bigger shipment from week to week know for USA. So either the sales goes through the roof or the Wii is also beginning to be available in US at least till Christmas.

@Just_Ben,

Actually from what I have read its available in certain places but far from all places in the PAL regions. But that is also based on stories and the like so its not very useful from a perspective of statistic and analysis.

@Vanguard,

Nope meeting demand is not a bad thing at all after 10 months imo. But I just don't think that is the case here. With all the consoles experiencing a slow down as I showed above and with an obvious shift in units in the weekly numbers from JP->US I just don't see any reason to think its a Wii slow down yet. If in a week or two things are still going this low then we can start having this discussion seriously.

 Sure. 39k is still a very respectable number. Point is myths like these should be busted:

- Wii is still supply constraint...

- figures in Japan goes down only becaues hardware is allocated to US...

- retailers are able to sell every Wii they get instantly...

... this is much more annoying than "big crumble of Big N. in JP".