Nintendo is well know for selling everything they shelve. Nintendo's consoles have been nutorious for being out of stock. With Halo3 out Gamasutra asked public relations head of Nintendo Eric Walter about whether the Nintendo Wii would continue to outsell X-360.

Eric's response was "I can say that the Wii and the DS are the two number-one selling consoles right now, and we're excited about that. We can't keep them on the shelves! I mean, typically it's about a day or two that they stay on the shelves, and we've upped production, and we're trying to get as many out to the shelves as we can. It's literally a demand issue, and we're going to ship 16.5 million this fiscal year, so it's certainly not a small amount! "

So firstly can Nintendo actually manage to ship another 3 million units this fall. I know Christmas is huge and that if Nintendo plays their cards right they should have no problem selling those units. Is 3-million enough for Christmas though considering on a global scale I'd say 3-million is barely enough for North America alone.

I myself think in order for the Wii to be readily availible on shelves accross the globe they would need to ship at least 5-million units but most likely they would remain out of stock. I think 5-million for North America would be enough to meet demand this fall and maybe 3 million for Europe and 2.5 million units for Japan. I'm talking nearly 10-million units.

 How many units do you think Nintendo would have to ship to satisfy Christmas and demand. Also isn't Eric being a little pessimistic he doesn't come out and say were gonna kick the crap out of Microsoft instead he just says their going to ship 16-million units by the end of the year and that all that should ship. What is your take on Nintendo's Wii's holiday performance is 3-million anywhere close to enough?

And they increased that forecast to 17.5 million!

They expect to ship 23.3M Wii's, until they increase their forecast again in January, by the end of March 2008.

I doubt their supply can top their overwhelming demand.

I have been thinking about this for a while now.

Analysts say that, because Wii sales did not go down despite Halo 3 boosting 360 sales, the Wii is obviously not catering to the core gamer/only 'casuals' are buying the system. What it could mean is that 250k(sales boost) core/hardcore gamers decided not to buy a Wii this month, in favor of the 360 and Halo 3. This, however, resulted in 250k other people waiting to get their hands on a Wii to be able to purchase it. Therefore, Wii sales are never affected.

It IS an overwhelming demand, indeed.

the affordibility of the high quality wii60 combo, combined with outrageous casual demand will keep the wii's numbers quite high at all times.

 That's kind of an odd assumption.  Who says the extra 250k who bought a 360 were planning on buying a Wii?  It could be the same group of people keeping the Wii sales up, 360 and the Halo 3 launch having nothing to do with it...either assumption could be true.

Surely nintendo are regreting not risking a bigger increase in production.

It looks like demand is staying strong even throughout the weak release schedule. If they're epecting mario, wii fit, smash bros etc to boost system sales, they could have sold so many more systems.

For every Wii that's sold out, the X360 Arcade bundle can sing its "only $30 more" siren song.

It all boils down to how many Wiis they have available, they need to fill as much demand as possible.

I don't know if the 360 can beat there last Q4 world wide, but they will beat it in NA. They have so much momentum at the moment it is just scary. In europe they face heavy competition from Sony. That just the way it is. It is the first Christmass for the PS3 this year and 399€ isn't a price Europeans aren't used to, its high, but not that extra ordinary for six month old console. The PS3 sells in Europe and beat the crap out of the 360 at the moment, and I can not see why they not should take that momentum in the holidays. I always said that a 500 price point for the starter pack (or 400€ just for the console) they will sell a lot of these. And a good performing PS3 takes away momentum from the 360. It is not the same with the Wii.