Nintendo: Replenishing Wii supply will be a 'challenge'

oh, I got it. by saying "Replenishing Wii supply will be a 'challenge'" will actually provoke Wii sell, so they keep saying the same thing for years.

I've always felt like they were facilitating this continued shortage.

Maybe they ran out of white plastic...
Somebody should tell them to load up the black pellets!

Taking 3 1/2 years to replenish supply of something definitely doesn't sound challenging to me..

Microsoft had arguably worse shortages but at least they worked to ship more units quickly after launch and never had to deal with shortages again.

might as well get the demand up so launch of wii2 is successful

It's a common strategy. Create an artificial shortage of product to drive up demand, play up the shortage in the press and everyone will take notice thinking that the shortage is due to awesome sales and think they have to get one or be left out. They did it with cabage patch Kids in the 80's and nintendo has been doing it with consoles for years.

When you tell the factories to scale down manufacturing, yes it is. Factories don't change up on a dime and neither to supply chains. So, by the time they get back to ramped up production the Wii supply would have balanced anyway and it was just a waste of money and time.

Well I'm sure Nintendo can tell you what wont be a challenge.

Printing money *Cha-Ching*

I know that, but Nintendo's been around for a while. They should know how to meet demand. You don't see DS shortages.

It's very shady to take them at face value on this one. They're the oldest console hardware manufacturer still in the game and they can't straighten out supply four years into the life cycle? I just have a really hard time believing 1. The demand is still that high and/or 2. Nintendo is incompetent. If the demand is real and they can't keep up with it they're doing it so completely wrong.

Very much so. It's not like they have the ability to just flip a switch to ramp up production, these things take months and months to work their way into the consumer system, and by then, conditions could have changed to the point of making a hasty move meaningless.

Pretty much what massmass said. It's eye-rollingly embarrassing when people think companies do this stuff on purpose. Having your product be "in demand" doesn't mean anything to a company if they aren't friggin' SELLING IT.
Unlike our fanboy mindsets, Nintendo doesn't see this as some sort of pecker waving PR war. PR doesn't make money and having their product be out of stock for what will amount to nearly an entire quarter DOESN'T look good in your financial reports.

In manufacturing, it's a lot easier to slow production than it is to ramp it back up again. For whatever reason, Nintendo saw fit to slow Wii production at some point around the middle or so of 2009 (probably because the Wii had been slumping for a while). If you slow manufacturing down like that, that means your suppliers slow down, too. It's comparatively easy to do, though... just give the suppliers of the individual parts the order to slow down and not ship as much.
If you want to speed it back up, it's harder to do. Suddenly you have to tell you suppliers that they need more, which means THEY potentially need to add more lines (back) to their production or any number of things.


So it's not that they're "incompetent". They're just EXTREMELY conservative. It keeps biting them in the ass, but they don't have much of a choice in the matter. They don't have anything else to fall back on like Sony and MS do; it's safe to say that they don't want to find themselves in another situation like they did with the Gamecube where they had a huge glut of supply a few years in because they over produced units and then eventually had to sell them at rock bottom prices.



On an unrelated note... WTF did Joystiq do to it's word filters? Apparently we can't say either 'd-ck', 'f-cuk' or both anymore without getting the Congratulations! email notice thing. I've had that happen with other random words lately, too.

We're talking about Nintendo, and their legendary 'inventory management' techniques.

Yeah, Playstation killed my mom as well.

Playstation killed my father and raped my mother.

So then what does that make you now? A 360 gamer, or a Wii gamer, or what?

Also, spread the love a little. I've had nothing but good times with my PS3... well except for that one night she had to "work late", and didn't come home until 2am in the morning. Not to mention the lipstick on the inside of her collar!

The PS3 may not have the greatest exclusives, no one does this gen really, except Nintendo but that's all they have.

The PS1 and PS2 helped boost the gaming industry and mature it as well. Before then they were just kids toys. So, you have to give them credit where it's due, not to mention the best games ever came out on the PS1 and PS2...

I was such a Nintendo fanboy for the Wii, now i'm an epic Nintendo Fanboy. 2nd best console i've ever been privvy to (behind the N64 of course)

"The PS3 may not have the greatest exclusives, no one does this gen really, except Nintendo but that's all they have."

You really think Nintendo has the "greatest" exclusives this generation? Thats ... interesting.

@Foetoid

Games-wise this is the worst Nintendo console I've ever owned. I never had a virtual boy but I've had all the other ones, loved them all but the Wii just hasn't done it for me like the 'Cube, 64 or SNES.

"Games-wise this is the worst Nintendo console I've ever owned. I never had a virtual boy but I've had all the other ones, loved them all"

Really? You had other Nintendo consoles and loved them all? I thought it wasn't until Little Big planet came out with its "whimsical childlike game play" that you could almost maybe relate to people who like Nintendo games.
If you always loved Nintendo's consoles why did it take you till 2008 and through a Sony lens to understand why people like Nintendo consoles? Did you forget about all the other Nintendo consoles you've owned and LOVED? I'm confused.
Anyway as somebody who loved Old school Nintendo I'm sure your pretty pleased with NSMB Wii, I am too!

Note to self: don't partake in console debates

S. Playstation Raped and Murdered Your Wife.

Find Him and Kill Him.

We still cool! We still cool! You pay later!

(did I do that right?)

no, it wasnt you used an english accent!

Yu coo! Yu Coo! yu pay lata!

Not really. Though I am fully aware of the Simpsons reference this is not a mimicking. We don't owe Nintendo money Brad, that's just silly. But the question still remains, "what happened to you Nintendo?"

Sony stole their lunch money, once. You're never the same after that happens.

Stole their lunch money? They gave Nintendo the biggest asswhooping in history. Microsoft and Sega too.

@Dr. Orpheus:
Listen, Dr. O, conjure up more Wiis or I'll have Venture do it instead.

Not really. My household has a 360, Ps3 and Wii between myself and my brothers and the Wii gets played the most out of those 3 and has more games.

They scaled down production because of declining sales, and now demand is back up. There's a perfectly logical explanation there.

Well, you never know when a spontaneous Brawl tourney will break out. Plus, I bought all those damn Virtual Console games...can't sell those back.

Simple: most of the time, they're trolling. They probably never owned a Wii in the first place.

It's hard for me to justify buying a good Wii game when there is a good PS3 game. I imagine if someone has a 360 & Wii they might feel similarly.

Nintendo has nothing to do with used Wii console sales.

I was thinking the shortage may be due to production/development of an upscaling Wii with fancy HD's. Ive been holding off buying one waiting for that to happen or for it to hit the $150.00 mark.

FACT: Babies don't buy Wiis.

Are Babies R Us where you go register to make babies?? Cus I want make babee too!! But how you meke bebee?!?

And maybe it just coincidence that near stacks of Wii there is always dead cat, that is reason you hit Wii when swing dead cat!!

Most americans dont live in places with easily available dead cats.




or Wiis, for that matter.

Burn it! Purge your house!