Because he tried to sell more than the PS3.

If they have the ability to meet sales then push the consoles out. Don't horde them like jerks.

They aren't exactly hording them. They are stockpiling for X-mas, which makes perfect sense financially...they are afterall a business =P

I think the sheer amount of Wiis they are putting out WW each week at unprecedented sustained levels shows their efforts to meet current demand quite clearly. But they have to balance that with their long term goals both financially and from an install base perspective.

I know it's better for business but the idea of hoarding systems when people have been waiting ages in some cases on getting them is fuckin customers over...

Not that all big companies don't do that, but some get a pass from their fans :P

 See this is where I take issue with your position, Nintendo is currently putting out more consoles than anyone ever has over the same months.  And they have done it at sustained levels far surpassing previous records.  I would call that a considerable effort to meet the current demand of consumers.

it gets really old with people acting like they are just ignoring people who want them now...its completely not true, the sheer number of consoles being shipped right now is immense.  But at some point you have to stop feeding the black void and focus on your business priorities a little.  Which is exactly whats happening.  

It's not like Sony has ever stock piled consoles for the holidays when they were selling out throughout the year.

Oh wait, they did exactly that.

Its pretty simple IMO.

Firstly - I trust Ninty's financial reports. They wouldn't overestimate figures - they just don't do it. So you can start with 22m Wiis by March '08 - unless there is some form of disaster.

And I'll say 5m sold Jan '08-March 08 (approx 1.5m/month) - maybe even 4m.

So that makes 17m-18m sold by end of this year.

Say they are currently around 12m - meaning another 5m-6m sold this year - in the remaining 3 months (Oct, Nov, Dec).

Selling around 1m/month (normal month). So 13m sold by end of October (approx).

So 4-5m sold in Nov/Dec. Approx 1.5-2.0m sold in November, and 2.5-3.5m sold in December.

Seems very reasonable, and more than likely to me.

So December will have about 1m available in each territory for Xmas. That's about 220k/week for all of December. Factor that the last week in December could sell 400k-500k units alone - and that makes 150k/week in remaining weeks.

No problem at all.

Question is - can they ship/produce even more units? Will have to see how October goes in general, but if you see 600k in US, 600k in Europe & 500k in Japan ... might be able to reach 19m-20m by end of '07. That would be truly amazing.

Also, I've found Nintendo tends to underestimate their forecast from time to time, so perhaps to add to what Shams was saying, that figure could be substantially larger

Nice post shams, just glad someone else is pointing to those financial estimates as well.  A month or two ago it seemed like nobody would listen to me when I broke it down.  A number of times I posted something similar to the bit below here...

16.5m FY estimate:

Q1 - ~3.5m (already known)
Q2 - (unknown) Estimate ~3.5m same as Q1
Q3 - (unknown) Estimate ~6m based on Q1, Q2, and Q4
Q4 - (unknown) Estimate ~3.5m same as Q1

Here's a question:

If Nintendo has that many Wii's, how come they just don't pump them all out? Think about it. With declining sales in Japan, they could just add that their already high supply of Wii's and satisfy the demand, right? How come that wouldn't work?