There must be some stockpiling taking place. It will still sell out though.

of course they must be stockpiling kn, the suicide would be not to do so, christmas is when demand spikes and as such more consoles need to be there to buy, there will not be any reason for them to drop the price before christmas even if ps3 came down to $300, all that would do would enable Sony to sell more [a hell of a lot more due to the unsold ps3s in stock], it would make little impact on Wiis sales because demand for Wii this christmas is probably almost at DS levels [which should sell 8 million Nov-Dec] a demand it unfortunately can't meet, but should try to get close to.

Remember as well Nintendo is trying to capture the non-gamer audience, who have not had much chance to get Wiis yet due to the more dedicated gamers buying Wiis asap... christmas will be when non-gamers go looking for stuff like this.

kn,
I'm with you, but many people here just prefer to believe in stockpiling. There's no business argument or evidence from fiscal reports that can convince them of the opposite.

Regarding Wii shipments - after 2.6 million units in the 1st quarter of 2007 (calendar quarter) and 3.4 millio units in the 2nd quarter I still think Nintendo will ship above 4 million units in this quarter and 4.5 to 5 million in the Holiday quarter. There will be windows of higher Wii availability, first in the US (possibly around November), then in Japan (more like December), but they won't be open for long. Europe is not sold out now and probably won't sell out this year. Then another 4.5 million units in the 1st quarter of 2008 should finally fill the store shelves.

@TWRoO
So how do you make sure that the more dedicated gamers don't buy all the Wii's in December? That just makes no sense at all. If they have product, and the can sell it now, they should sell it as fast as possible. The only exception would be if they Nintendo plan to raise the price by Christmas. $299, do you think will happen?

I was at a store the other day and they were sold out of PS3s and 360s but had wii's, explain that.

Your store is not very good at keeping PS3s and 360s in stock. I hear the occassional story like this, but 90% of the time they're plentiful.

As for the Wii, it has become a lot easier to find, but there are still plenty of people having trouble finding them (I have only seen them "in the wild" once), and the holidays are only going to make it worse.

To get to my sig's predictions...

Wii will continue to sell around 1m/mo for Sept and Oct. November will be around 1.5m and December with 3m+.

So, this would mean they HAVE to be stockpiling otherwise i don't see how they could do this. Thier own projections have themselves at this same level. As a side note I made this prediction way before they announced their own projections.

There is NO DOUBT now, NONE. They are building up a Wii stockpile for the holidays.  

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=17436

Fils-Aime Promises 'Unprecedented' Wii Supply for Holiday

Even though we're fast approaching the one-year anniversary of the Wii, the console is as popular as ever and still quite hard to find. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime says that Nintendo is preparing "substantially more" Wiis for the holiday season, but that's still no guarantee you'll find one.

In a newly posted video interview with Mercury News columnists Dean Takahashi, Mike Antonucci and Troy Wolverton, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime promised that Nintendo will be ready to satiate consumers' desire for the Wii this holiday season.

 

"The good news is that we're flowing more and more product into the marketplace and the amount of Wii hardware that will be in North American stores will be unprecedented – substantially more than the launch, substantially more than has been seen to date," he said.

 

Even with the "unprecedented" supply, the Wii will still be a tough find, Fils-Aime admitted, but he outlined what he thinks consumers' strategy should be in order to find the popular console this holiday.

 

"The bad news is that given the level of demand, and given the fact that the more we put in the more we sell, it is still going to be difficult to get [your] hands on the Wii... All major retailers will have regular supply, and so as consumers you need to regularly check out your Walmart, Target, GameStop, Best Buy, Toys 'R Us, Circuit City – all of those key retailers," he said. "Talk to the manager and find out when they get their regular shipments, and try to get there when the product comes in. It's going to be flowing in every week, but the fact is that currently demand outstrips supply on a worldwide basis."

 

Fils-Aime also spoke briefly about the competition, noting that the Xbox 360 and PS3 have not really had any impact on Nintendo's business.

 

There's plenty more in the full video interview, so we recommend you check it out for yourself.

 

reverie said: @TWRoO So how do you make sure that the more dedicated gamers don't buy all the Wii's in December? That just makes no sense at all. If they have product, and the can sell it now, they should sell it as fast as possible. The only exception would be if they Nintendo plan to raise the price by Christmas. $299, do you think will happen?

because the dedicated gamers are willing to keep trying to look through shops now for it so any stock released is bought by them, in December if they put the same amount of Wiis on shelves as now they will sell out and non-gamers may just give up after 2 or 3 stores.... if Wiis are put on shelves as soon as they are made it means less at christmas... which is when the non-gamers will be looking. Of course it makes sense. ok reading that back i think i repeated myself and got a little confusing. basically, not many non-gamers will be looking for Wiis before christmas, so the more Wiis at christmas the better chances non-gamers will pick one up. the bottom bit of my last post was only my speculation, the main reason for needing more at christmas is the huge demand spike [of both gamers and non-gamers].... i understand the reasoning behind not stockpiling, for instance if Ninty released all Wiis at once then demand for now could be saturated, and any not bought now could just be on shelves ready for xmas. However Nintendo doesn't know how high current demand is, so there might not be any on shelves for xmas other than the usual million p/month, and without xmas stock they could lose customers that wouldn't buy any other time than christmas. /ok i went on too much, i hope you understand my side of the argument.

Well fishyjoe has proved it, but refering to superchunks post... Nintendos current projection is to have shipped 16 million this fiscal year, adding the 5.84 from last f'year makes near 22 million by the end of March 08, if they keep the current 'just over a million' p/month they would only get to about 18 million, so assuming jan-march sales are the same as now there are almost 4 million missing Wiis.... those should be spread nicely across Nov/Dec and make about 5.5 million Wiis

[to further add to chunks sig prediction that means just over 17 million sales by jan 08. I myself think it will be nearer but not past 18 million... but superchunk predicted a year ago 8 million for ps3 and 14 for 360 by jan 08... which appears to be coming true so trust him more than me]

/gahh i meant this to be a short post.