Nintendo slow to supply retailers with fresh Wiis?

http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=PS3&name2=X360&type=2&align=0

Finally someone in the industry mentions it. My main question would be whether the problem is intentional, shipping faults, or production issues though. I suspect it be be production issues. (hyper-efficient machines needs complex manufacturing and have very small margins of errors..)

I'd buy it. I'm not expecting to see one in the store sitting on the shelf, but I've not heard of any stores around here even receiving any since the mini re-launch sale a month and a half ago.

I've seen a few at EBgames lately, but I already got one launch week from costco, so I wasn't interested. Now, what's hard to find is those blasted nunchuks.

Waits for:

"Nintendorks sux so much they cant even make wii lol"

BEFORE you start running with this, consider that the Wii has still shipped and sold A LOT more units than the PS3. So no matter how you spin this, the demand is real. They have shipped drastically more units than sony and it still continues to sell out.... So if they are holding back a bit, they are still blasting out more units than sony.

I suppose they are purposly making the DS hard to buy in Japan too? Come on people, they want to get this product in as many hands as possible... restricting shipments would only harm that.

I've seen a few at EBgames lately, but I already got one launch week from costco, so I wasn't interested. Now, what's hard to find is those blasted nunchuks.

Someone call the Pulitzer commitee.

It takes some kind of talent to see a retailer say Nintendo's supply process "could be a little better" and suggest that it's all part of Nintendo's master plan to "swell demand."

This myth of companies inflating demand is pretty much nonesense. There really isn't any business sense to turning away customers.

http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=PS3&name2=Wii&type=3&align=0

Uh, they shipped at least 400,000 Wiis last January. More any other systems. Only problem is that they all sell out as fast as they can make them.

Oops, wrong one. This is the one I wanted to show.

http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=PS3&name2=Wii&type=2&align=0

Is it Nintendo or the retailers? I was able to get a system at toys r us and they are often in stock. Walmart often has games on release dates (or day after) and I hate walmart, they also have controllers. Target often has controllers as well.

Gamestop/ebgames? Nope. Out of stock... if you preorder games... you get the wii game 1 day after the release, their new excuse is that it is the "ship date" and that it takes 1 extra day. Why then should we pre-order?

The last three times I've gone to their stores it has been a disaster. First, wario warez was not ordered, so it was 1 day behind (#1 wii selling game).. where was it? Walmart... I went to freaking walmart for a videogame, not the video game store, walmart.

So, a month later goes by, I try again... Should I pre-order? Nah, since its not going to come out that day or they will have extras in stock the day off. So I want SSX Wii... go to gamestop...

sorry we won't have it until tomorrow.

tomorrow happens: sorry we won't have it until noon

2pm happens: sorry we only bought pre-orders...

so then I ask... well your a video game store shouldn't you order more then games that are in stock? You guys are always out of controllers, chucks and systems... now games? "Well you see, nobody has those in stock"... Then me and my fiance discussed how walmart in the ghetto of milwaukee has them and so does toys r us...

This is what gamestop said:
"Well actually, wii just isn't in demand like xbox360. Everybody owns xbox360 so we try to stock xbox360 games..." wtf is that... Wii is on top of things right now, did he and she miss the news? Both were completely lost and appoligzed.

So we walk out to our car... OH WAIT... WE DO HAVE IT IN STOCK... we just happend to put it in our security box.

So, they forgot that my girl had stopped in twice earlier and was informed it would be there at noon. They forgot who she was after seeing her the 3rd time. However after telling us it would be in stock 2 times, they finally remebered oh yeah... we recieve shipments everyday at noon, just like we told you on the phone.

So maybe these companies are starting to suck, probably why they all go out of business and buy eachother out. Why was I able to order 2 wii remotes and recieve them in no time from nintendo? Why should I got to ebgames/gamestop when their games are out of stock, service sucks and they lack support for wii? They don't even have a playable wii system.

to #9 3cubedminus3squared

We already know that the Wii is winning the PS3, there's not much point in that chart. However, a comparison between the Wii and XB360 is more informative. Try:
http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=X360&name2=Wii&type=0&align=1

Granted that it's expected for Wii to be understocked, but between November and December the Wii sold less than the 360 on December alone. Of cause, this is just NA figures, but is isn't entirely impossible that some units were intentionally held back, just in case the demand for the Wii isn't large enough.

I don't think it's an issue of supply. Issue is overwhelming demand. Wiis sell out within minutes, if not a few hours. And they haven't even released the black Wii yet. Nor the dvd-enabled Wii. Nor the major titles (Brawl, Galaxy, Corruption).

Since being out for only 3 months and selling over 5.2 million units, that's absolutely great. Hell, they did what no other console has done! Besides, GamePro can suck my dick. They suck. Only little kids read that mag.

Nintendo World Store in NYC gets a huge new shipment pretty much every day. I've seen them still have tons of systems around lunchtime, though they're usually sold out by early afternoon.

Just a tip...

This theory doesn't make sense to me. What kind of advantage does any company get by holding out on consumers? Swelling hype? Okay, but that doesn't guarantee more people will buy the product when it actually becomes available. If anything, they risk turning off potential customers altogether. No one cares about the next big thing if they have hunt to find it.

The way to sell your product is to have it in stores. The only ones benefiting from this shortage are eBayers and other gray market sellers. There's no way the situation is intentional.

Well, I can honestly say in my fair size Canadian town our EB games is daily hit on in waves of fans [not to mention phone calls!] looking for the Wiister. Not even close to saturation point of supply up here!

i burly play with my wii

squeezing supply when your the only next gen console on the market is understandable, but this isn't the case with the wii, i don't think its in nintendo's best interest to do this when they are competing with the ps3 and 360 for market share so if anything they are making as many as possible to satisfy current demand which might be as high as it gets, keeping their lead with the ps3 and catching up with the 360.

One anonymous source? Where is it that blogs get the reputation of not being real news?

@ Psaakyrn
When you look at this one:
http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=X360&name2=Wii&type=2&align=0

Its easy to see that the Wii's first three months is almost twice as good as the 360's first three months were.

This one goes out to "roe"

What you do have to keep in mind about Gamestop/EBGames, these stores don't have the same supply chains as the big box stores like Wal-Mart and Toys R Us, they rely on UPS (or similiar) for their inventory, so if their UPS man has a lot of deliveries that day, you don't get your game until late.

Also I don't think distributers trust Gamestop with having games before launch date.

I do hate when I don't have a game pre-ordered and there are no extra copies to buy, but I am happy that my local GS Manager doesn't sell away Pre-Orders until like 48 hours later or something similar.

You have to realize that more dedicated gamertypes go to the "boutique" stores first, rather than Wal-Mart, but the same stores don't have the buying power to satisfy all the demand.

to #20 ghj

Having the option of being anonymous is essential to news reporting. Look up on the First Amendment.

to #21 3cubedminus3squared

To bad the Wii came out a year later, right?

Irregardless of what everyone thinks, it's the present and/or future that matters. The past is only used to predict the future, nothing more.

And besides, everyone knows the XBox 360 had serious production issues back then. Being twice as good proves almost nothing, except that there're issues somewhere on the chain, since it's being sold out too. Whether those issues is intentional or not is unknown.

The question about this report is what retailers are complaining about lack of wii shipments. It doesn't seem to be Target since their wii sales day each Target has 15 wiis at least.

Bestbuy doesn't seem to be either since they often have 20 or more each store.

Walmart not them either and that is like eight units.

I often find Walmart has more games then gamestop.

Gamestop when I wanted Elebits the stupid clerk had no idea what it was and when he finally found it he said they only had two copies. The walmart in the same shopping center I went to later in the day had 20 copies of each wii game including elebits.

Only reason I went into gamestop was to trade in my gamecube since they had a 20 dollars more for the trade in then usual deal going on.

I notice my local walmarts are now carrying ds rumble packs, wifi usb connectors, far more gamecube controllers memory cards then they used to.

I think walmart is displeased about the PS3 and xbox 360 since those sections are much smaller in terms of games then the wii or DS sections.

We could sure teach Nintendo how to keep shelves stocked!

-Phil Harrison

Wii revision on the way. That's what I think.
DS lite was in short supply in Japan right before the Lite hit (like, shorter supply than it is in now, I mean).
I'm gonna hope that Nintendo does a repeat performance with the Wii... if only because I've held out this long on picking one up, I'd like to be rewarded for my patience ;)

THIS IS JUST NOW NEWS!

Wii's have been barely there since LAUNCH DAY!

We are talking 3 units a week if you are lucky, sometimes going 3 weeks without any units.

And don't get me started on remotes and nunchucks.

AHem the DS lite came out when the DS demand skyrocted to a point when 600,000 units were being sold each week in Japan wiping out the inventory stored up till Christmass time.

DS demand had been ramping up steadily and then it all of a sudden exploded and demand has continued.

They wouldn't do a wii revision till they can meet some of the demand for the existing color white.

They simply sell out what the factories make. Why is that so hard for people to accept?

Last week my local Target got Wiis in, and they had a $50 markup on em. Sold out a little slower than usual, but I was told a laggy checkout counter was to blame for the 45 minute sell-out.

Nintendo slow on shipping Wiis? REALLY NOW?!


*sigh* *looks at empty space in front of TV reserved for Wii*

When making any kind of physical product, manufacturers try to commit to a production capacity that will reasonably meet demand and prevent a supply glut. Nintendo could have tried to make 2 million or more Wiis a month but would have faced significantly higher costs and increased the risk of unsold inventory. With GameCube sales totaling 22M in 5 years, 1 million Wiis a month seems like a good number to start with. (Such a rate would have the Wii match the previous system's installed base in less than two years.)

Since the Wii has proven more popular than anticipated and demand continues to be strong after the normal holiday sales spike, Nintendo plans on increasing supplies as quickly as possible. They could probably make around 2M a month and still sell out for the short term and again over the holidays, but I anticipate that they'll increase production more modestly to about 1.5 M/month. (That would equal 18M for fiscal 2007 and a total of 24M systems by the end of March 2008.)

The demand for the Wii is not artificial. I had a coworker who never expressed an interest in a video game system ask me to help her get a Wii after her family played it last weekend. This viral marketing creates a steady supple of new customers and will ensure that the system continues to be in short supply for at least the next few months. (I certainly hope this out of stock crap doesn't lasts all year.) Speaking of, Nintendo needs to up the production capacity on the DS again. While not as bad as the holidays, DSes can be somewhat hard to come by.

Nintnendo already announced that the Wii was being upped in April. It takes time after all to pump production up. You gotta acquire the componets after all which is it's own category of issues that have to be resolved. If Sony had killed off other blu-ray dvd players supply of diodes they would have drastically upped PS3 production at the risk of alienating their partners in Blu-ray player production.

There is no magic lever that one can pull to up production of a product.

Nintendo has already announced a increase in the production of DS lites. With them being officaly sold in Korea the bump in production may have to be boosted if the Brain Training effect takes off in Korea.

If your looking fore remotes or nunchunks just go to sears. I got a 2 remotes and my nunchunks there. I got my wii at target and the employee there said they get a nice shipment about every week. Around 20 or so.

The idea of limiting the number of available consoles to drum up sales is preposterous.

34-Geo

I gotta agree with you there... if not preposterous, then at least idiotic on Nintendo's part.

-Leshrac
http://alinktothefuture.com

Obviously its been said but I'll say it again - they are selling WAY more Wii than PS3 so that right there should tell you their supply chain is running pretty well. Secondly, they get into stores here and there, I know 3 people who were able to get one in the last two weeks, just by happening across a recent shipment at Wal-mart, Target, and EB for another. But they all reported that the systems were attracting attention and being bought as they were stocked. In the Balto area you still are unlikely to find Wii, remotes, nunchucks, classic controllers, and even those damn silicon glove things are always sold out. Its ridiculous. I got mine in Nov and am enjoying SSX Blur now so I've been waiting for more friends to generate a Mii parade the size of which has never been seen before :)

Has nobody read Nintendo's history?

I have no doubts that the demand for the "Wii" is real - it's a great product that has real mass appeal.

But IF (and it's a big IF, I admit) Nintendo is artificially creating demand, it won't be the first time they've done it. They were all over that tactic in the NES days.

Not a surprise. Nintendo does this all the time. They're currently doing it in Japan.

And honestly, maybe others should have done it too. Despite there being no games for 9 months, PS2 was highly sought after.

You always want what you can't have. Better to leave them wanting than let them all get one and find out that the console is experiencing a game drought.

Psaakyrn (#22),

Point taken. Here's my thoughts on that. While sometimes necessary if newsworthy information can't be printed otherwise, the use of anonymous sources should not be taken lightly. In this case, why should we believe what the source is saying? Who else is saying it? What other evidence do we have that this is true? None of those questions are answered.

Beyond that, the quote in this case doesn't even really imply what the article says it does. Complaining that Nintendo's supply chain isn't as smooth as it could be does not mean Nintendo is intentionally making demand appear artificially large. More likely it means they don't quite have their act together. And, as many posters have suggested, that is most likely because they had no reason to believe Wii would sell as well as it has. Until I see some real evidence to the contrary, I'm going to believe that quite reasonable explanation rather than conspiracy theories.

I guess that's what I meant by my previous post, which was admittedly glib.

What the frack are you talking about? The NES had a huge demand. The issue was that stores didn't want to stock a video game console due to the huge backlash against Atari that resulted from the video game crash. Hence why ROB was created to make it look like another toy.

I think ghj hit it right on the nail: Nintendo doesn't have their act together.

It was just like when DS hit it really big in Japan. Sold out so quickly, they released a press release apologizing for the demand they didn't anticipate.


Or... They could be short on any one of the components (Wi-fi receiver, Bluetooth receiver, auto-adjusting DVD drive, etc.)... You can't sell a system unless it has EVERY part ready, ya know?

I worked at Nintendo's shipping facility in North Bend, WA last summer, and let me tell you from my experience that they are in no way trying to build hype from undercutting shipping. They were in a massive hiring build-up, using all the temp employment agencies to gain access to as many employees as possible, and switching production lines to putting together controllers. The facility there in North Bend is large, and the managers there feared working 80 hour weeks when the wii launched (which i bet they did.)

Simply put, they even underestimated demand for the wii. Nintendo wants to put the device in consumer's hands ASAP, so they can make the real money, which is off licensing for the games.

And to those who think that Nintendo has chain problems, Trust me, they had things down to a science over there. We shipped ridiculous amounts of product to retailers at a ridiculous level of accuracy. The thing is that this wii demand is totally unlike the reception they had for the gamecube. Wii sports and media buzz has elevated this demand to level it is today.

The coolest part of the facility was seeing the robots on ground level, all of which had nintendo-character names and logo's : e.g. one was yoshi, one was link, etc.

you can see some pictures here:
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/specialArt.cfm?artid=2137

and some more info on the wiki here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_North_Bend

This is what I been telling people about all along! Nintendo just doesn't have them. They thought they could just launch the Wii and scam everybody till their luck runs out. Making a killing at $250 per system and $50 for old game remakes. Accessories were nonexistance for weeks. Public craze kept them from making a quick waltz out the back. And now they have to deliver.

What bugs me is that there really isn't anything about the Wii that's difficult to manufacture. Take one apart and see for yourself. The motherboard is practically barren, and all the components, like memory, are in ample supply. There also aren't many components (if any) that have to be assembled by hand.

Let's assume for a moment that Nintendo has manufactured 2.5 times as many Wii systems as Sony has made PS3s. Does that properly corrolate to the complexity of the machine, given that the PS3 is a nightmare to produce?

Also, the DS is chronicly sold out, too. Everything related to Nintendo is, asside from the piles of Gamecubes.

to #46 Burnt Meatloaf

Just because the chips look normal, doesn't mean the chips are normal. If an extremely power-efficient machine is so easy to produce, don't you think that the 360 or PS3 would follow suit?

The dvd drive is fairly complex since it is the only dvd drive that can read two disc sizes. Also the builtin wifi, super efficent energy consumption is also something that isn't simple.

*Psaakyrn: "Just because the chips look normal, doesn't mean the chips are normal."

Right. The Wii doesn't use BGA and plastic-pack surface-mount ICs like all the other embedded system manufacturers.

*Psaakyrn: "If an extremely power-efficient machine is so easy to produce, don't you think that the 360 or PS3 would follow suit?"

Excuse me? The chips in the other systems aren't going to change in power consumption until they switch to the 65nm process. Until then, they are complicated to assemble, and can still easily be made by the millions. Once the switch takes place, the motherboards will be fully redesigned to make them easier to build.

*idioteraser: "The dvd drive is fairly complex since it is the only dvd drive that can read two disc sizes."

Actually, it isn't. It has two forks that shift the disc to the center if it is not inserted straight. You can find photos of the drive and how it works online.

There are other commercial slot-loading burners that handle both disc formats. I've seen them on servers and also video workstations (because they are designed to accept minidiscs used in digital cameras). They aren't popular, for obvious reasons, but the design isn't complicated at all.

*idioteraser: "Also the builtin wifi, super efficent energy consumption is also something that isn't simple."

The WiFi is just a single surface-mount component with a wire sticking out of it. It's costly, but not short in supply or hard to put together. Search for photos.

"Super-efficient" energy consumption actually reduces component complexity and makes the machine EASIER to manufacture, and you don't need complex RF shielding because the power supply is external.

Do you even know what PCB assembly machines look like?

This is stupid. It's in Nintendo's interest to sell as many Wiis as they possibly can. Sitting on them in a warehouse to artificially limit supply hurts them, it doesn't help them.