7-9 Million Wiis by 2007?

Gamespot is reporting that Nintendo's production of the Wii is actually going better than expected. Analyst firm UBS is now estimating that 7-9 Million Wii units should be off the production lines by 2007. From the article: "Citing industry 'checks,' UBS analysts Alex Gauna and Steven Chin claim that Nintendo already made 2 million Wiis by the end of September. They go on to predict that, 'at least 7 million and potentially as high as 9 million more units are in the build plan for Q4 06. This production ramp handily exceeds a publicly announced target for 6 million units to ship by year's end.'"

Comments

Supply and demand?

[Endo13]

I'll take mine for $200 thank you! :D

Might not be enough

[also-rr]

I know four people here who are going to buy a Wii. Assuming that everyone else in the UK knows 4 people who are going to buy a Wii that makes 240 million sales in the first week alone just for the UK via simple mathematical extrapolation. Can't argue with the numbers!

Re:Might not be enough

[246o1]

I know between 5 and 10 people who are going to buy a Wii. Assuming all other people also know 5-10 people who are going to buy a Wii, that's 30 to 60 billion sales in the first week alone!

Re:Might not be enough

[rolfwind]

I think it does say something that geeks are anticipating the Wii. It was MS/Sony's expectation that us geeks, being more hardcore, would welcome the PS3 or perhaps the Xbox with welcome arms due to the horsepower alone.

And then we would spread the gospel to the Muggles in turn, providing free advertising/sale's drive to their consoles.

I know enough people still anticipate those systems, but it seems the Xbox 360 reception has been lukewarm and the Wii has turn the industry on it's head by not trying to compete in the areas Sony is exceedingly strong in, but rather playing to their own strengths.

In part, I see the PS3, with its Bluray encumbered/enable device, heading somewhat in the same direction as the Nintendo Gameboy VR and Sega Saturn, of years past. It will have success, however, but right now it seems Sony has to initiate most of its own hype, the PS3 will fail to launch Blu-ray as a defacto video standard, and probably fall short of the PS2 in terms of market domination.

Re:Might not be enough

[kthejoker]

An Imagined Conversation Inside Your Head

The Guy Who Makes You Funny: Man, did you read that?
The Guy Who Does Your Math: Yes, what terrible logic!
Funny: Logic? Well, of course it's not logical, it's a j-
Math: Shh! I am working out how to explain the logical flaw of "social networking" to this yokel.
Funny: What? You're going to "explain" it. Dude, he knows it's a joke. That's the whole point of jokes, people do them on purpose.
Math: Preposterous. He's not joking, he's clearly an imbecile who thinks that people's networks are exponential in nature, when really they're not.
Funny: Wait, wait. I get it. You're joking with me.
Math (having just hit submit): Yes. A joke.
Funny (chuckling): Whew! You had me going there, I thought - you know - maybe you were really going to try to prove a point, and we just don't need to show we're unfun-HOLY SHIT YOU ACTUALLY SUBMITTED A POST HOW COULD YOU?

(Pause.)

Funny: We are *never* going to get laid.

Re:Might not be enough

[Heir Of The Mess]

I know between 5 and 10 people who are going to buy a Wii. Assuming all other people also know 5-10 people who are going to buy a Wii, that's 30 to 60 billion sales in the first week alone!

Who let these RIAA/MPAA mathematicians in here? This is a gaming forum goddamit! Oh wait..Is that you Sony?

Going so well

[nlawalker]

Everything is going so well for Nintendo. I really hope for them that the launch dates go off without a hitch and the awesome reviews start pouring in a few days later. It would be a make a huge impact in the definition of what "next-gen" games are if this console is a massive success.

Hopefully nothing has gone wrong in the production process. I can't imagine the stress of being a designer or tester for the console hardware. What happens when your company is successfully rolling millions of new machines off the line and someone finds a showstopper hardware bug? We all rememeber the Intel division fiasco.

Smart move

[jacks smirking reven]

With that many units on the shelf they have more then cover the holiday buyig system, and enough left on the shelves for the post holiday market. Lines up very nicely with a price drop in the late spring summer time frame. Its almost creepy how everything Sony has gotten wrong (supply, timing, innovation, buzz) Nintendo has gotten dead on right this time around.

I think Sony & MS have jumped the gun too earl

[rolfwind]

It seems they went in and produced HD capable consoles one generation too early, the increase in price seems to be giving Nintendo a big boost come launch time. I only hope the actual launch lives up to the speculation.

Nintendo won't have to live up to the graphic expectations of Sony, Xbox, but for that, the gameplay will have higher expectations.

This is of course good for the average consumer, because, by the merits of mass production, HD capable consoles will be the minimum/default the next generation, and it might even boost HD TV sales more than they are, and drive down the price in that area by the time the next console wars come.

Re:what if problems arise?

[SoapDish]

I have no worries about this. I (or my brothers) have bought every nintendo system the day it came out since the SNES, and we've never had a problem, ever. I've had many, amany problems with my first of the run PS2, though.

Also, with the early production, maybe nintendo will test those first units to make sure the mass-manufacturing works well.

Nintendo is doomed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know any people. Assuming everybody else doesn't know any people either, this implies no people eixst and Nintendo will not be able to sell ANY Wiis, due to a lack of potential customers.

all our base could belong to us?

[norminator]

Of course, that's the wrong preposition:

All our base are belong to Wii