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GameStop Theorizes Wii Shortage Deliberate
In GameStop's quarterly public conference call, company COO Dan DeMatteo called out Nintendo on what he sees as intentional supply shortages. Along with the news that the company hit $5.3 Billion in 2006, Next Gen reports that the call contained several remarks on the next gen systems. The Wii, Dematteo thinks, has been short supplied because 'they made their numbers for the year ... [Nintendo's] new year starts April 1st, and I think we're going to see supply flowing.' They also commented on the Euro launch of the PS3, with CEO R. Richard Fontaine saying, 'I think the summary of that was that it was a very good launch falling somewhat short of what [GameStop's Euro managing directors] would call a great launch.'
You run the risk of having consumers turn to the Xbox360 instead because 3 months after Christmas is a long time to wait for a console.
I don't know if that is what Nintendo did... but it would seem short sighted to lose a customer over the life of this product and reaping in game sales just to have better numbers in one quarter.
This from the company that resells new reprints as used because the used sells for more.
If they're artificially choking supply at ~6million units sold worldwide already, I'd hate to hear those numbers if they weren't.
I'm shocked....
I'm not so sure that's the case though. There definitely does seem to be more demand than can be quickly supplied. Remember kids, the PS3 was the intentionally shorted console, and now they're on shelves everywhere. The Wii on the other hand is actually selling still and there's tremendous demand for them.
It's very, very common for businesses to proceed slowly after sales / profit goals have been met in a fiscal year. Short term planning proceeds on a year-to-year basis. Te vastly ramp up production without fully analyzing consequences is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot, even if every console produced was sold.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Best Windows Freeware
That dosn't seem to make any sense at all. Now, if you were going to accuse them of holding out on shipments of Wimotes in order to be able to get them in the WiiPlay combo boxes, I'd say yeah, I can see that, but it dosn't make any sense at all for Nintendo to be holding back on the Wii itself. From what I've seen they have been making regular shipments to various retailers, just not very large shipments. If you're patient and willing to make an effort, you can get a Wii, you just need to check in on a regular basis (which can be even easyer if you can find out the shipping schedule for one of the retailers). I pre-ordered my Wii and had it on release night, so I didn't need to worry, but I also know of at least 12 other people who didn't and have since purchased them. Of course, I don't know anybody that's purchased a PS3, but that's not due to a shortage there.
Ok, yeah, that last one was un-called for. And I do like the PS3, but only enough to pay about $350, so till then, I'll stick with the Wii (and maybe a 360 if they release the new hardware and it comes down to $300).
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Yes the only company actually turning a profit on a console just really doesn't like money so they would rather not make it by holding back supply. Maybe Dan needs to go back to firing managers whose employees sell games to kids and continue with his own exceptional management policies, as in how to ass whip customers into trading in more games or over pre ordering things that will never sell out in a million years. "Yes sir you really need to preorder Barbie horse adventure 2, the first one was a major blockbuster not to be missed, dont forget to bring in your trades, did you bring any trades, did I mention we take trades." Maybe Dan should lay off speculation and go back to his telemarketer like tactics of commerce!
I'd second the sentiment that online play pisses me off. If it's done well, as an added mode on top of a great game, then fine. But a lot of developers these days are using it as an excuse to deliver extremely half-assed single player content. I don't know how many times I've heard, "The story mode for Gears of War is kinda short and not that interesting, but the multiplayer is a lot of fun." Somehow, playing against a trash-talking pre-teen with nothing better to do than practice 8 hours a day just doesn't interest me in the same way as a well written story mode.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
But I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense. "Making goal" for the quarter isn't exactly the most important issue in the world, in comparison to the livelyhood of an entire console generation.
It doesn't make any sense at all. The claim is that Nintendo, having easily met their fiscal goals, deliberately clamped production/shipments. First, so long as you don't appear to be sacrificing long term stability, investors would love for you to exceed your goal. Nobody complains about making more money, and I can't see why Nintendo would. The theory is that they want to move what would-be current-fiscal-year sales into the next fiscal year to make those numbers look better. That theory implies Nintendo thinks the demand for Wii is going to slack, which it doesn't show any sign of, and also that they think they aren't at any risk of frustrated customers buying one of the competitor's consoles. I think the opposite applies -- demand for Wii will continue to be strong, but only if people can actually buy one. The best advertising for the Wii is word of mouth (as in "come over and play Wii Sports"), and that only works if people can get them.
It would be a dangerous market game for Nintendo to play, and I see them as too conservative. If they can make a sale today, they will, because you never know if that sale is going to be around in six months.
Probably a more practical reason is to short the supply of units during the innitial games draught, a game release slump which is simply unavoidable for any console.
I think the Wii is more immune to a game slump than most consoles, simply because the mom/grandpa non-gamer demographic that is the whole "expanded market" thing the Wii is after is probably going to be happy with just Wii Sports for longer than any traditional gamer. This is also why the Wii is still very vulnerable to 3rd party issues, since if game uptake is low for the Wii despite the large number of systems out there 3rd parties may still be wary. Which means that right now not having a large number of Nintendo-published games for the Wii is good for 3rd parties; every sale of Trauma Center or Elebits or Rayman helps show the Wii as a 3rd party friendly platform.
Anyway, I know I personally am much more frustrated by my inability to play any Wii games than I would be if I owned the console and had to deal with a drought. If I owned a Wii and was pissed at the games drought, well, I already gave Nintendo my money and they made a profit on it. If I don't own a Wii because I can't find one, then if I don't like the lack of games I can go buy a different console and Nintendo has gained nothing. I really can't see this as being a rational reason for Nintendo to limit supply.
Here's the only thing that makes sense to me: Nintendo paid for an amount of manufacturing capacity based on their expected sales, and had every intention of meeting that demand. Actual demand far outstripped their expectations, so this supply was inadequate. Now they could have tried to increase their manufacturing capacity, and may have decided not to for two reasons: One, to keep the one-time costs of tooling up the factories off this year's report; and two, because they aren't sure in the long term that such capacity is really going to be needed. You can spend a ton of money building factories, but if demand trails off then you just blew that money for no reason. I'm betting this is the real reason -- again, being conservative, Nintendo isn't going to look at the higher-than-expected sales for a couple months and jump off the deep end constructing new factories.
The theory that Nintendo has the capability to make more Wii at will, but isn't due to some desire to manipulate the market, just doesn't hold any sanity-water.
The enemies of Democracy are
If Nintendo sold all the consoles they could, they could take over the #1 installed base crown from the Xbox 360, which would force developers to support the Wii, which would lead to future profitability, both from increased console sales (since they'd be the most desirable console due to all the games) and licensing revenue (since Nintendo gets a cut of all the game sales for their console). In this case, short-term sales lead to long-term sales, making it stupid to hold back stock.
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
The book you mention is titled "Game Over - Press Start to Continue", and it is highly informative concerning the games industry if you a blissfully ignorant child at the time it all went down (as I was). I recommend it to anyone here who hasn't already informed themselves of what happened then.
Nintendo certainly had a Monopoly, and they used that power in the industry. How much of it was greed and how much of it was necessary corrective action to prevent the mistakes made in the Atari era is up to interpretation.
What they did (for whatever reasons) was unpopular with developers (however necessary it may or may not have been), hence the mass exodus around the N64 era to the Playstation.
I'm personally one who gives companies, as well as people, significant amounts of "benefit of the doubt" whether Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. If there are problems with Nintendo and the shipment of development kits I'd much sooner chalk it up to logistical or supply issues (they can't seem to keep normal Wiis on shelves, developement tools are likely in a similar state) rather than any malevolence. Iwata is not Yamauchi, and I think he's eager to avoid the mistakes that made third parties abandon Nintendo for Sony in the first place.
This doesn't mean that he or Nintendo doesn't want my wallet, simply that he and the company he leads recognizes that in order to get at it properly they need third parties, and in order to get third parties they need to play nice.
The only logical reason to keep a third party away from a Wii dev kit at this point in time is to keep them from making a game with a pathetic excuse for a control scheme. Given that there are already games which have fallen into this category, I think we can largely rule that out.
Well I've rambled enough.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
> The story mode for Gears of War is kinda short and not that interesting, but the multiplayer is a lot of fun.
Translation:
Hot ingame graphics are a requirement to get reviewers and teens to buy, gotta pay those guys. With the popularity of online the equally expensive cut scenes, hollywood actors doing voices and paying somebody who can actually write a half baked plot can all be cut to the bone.
Multiplayer is pretty much multiplayer, regardless of the game, because the PLAYERS are the most important thing and they are fairly constant even across widely different game genres..... and lame.
Democrat delenda est
Here's a question that i haven't heard asked: /. is largely english speaking US/UK/Ireland and there's no japanese /.er's coming on and saying that they've got no idea what the US consumers are talking about and that there isn't a shortage in Nintendo's home market. I'd be interested to see if the Wii is selling out in Japan too.
Are there Wii shortages in Japan? clearly
You're right, for the most part. Case in point, I hated fighting games as a kid, cause they're only good multiplayer and I was horrible at them. Now I go to tournaments for them. Also, it is more a about skill than time spent playing. For me, the real problem is multiplayer games that only really have online play. Online is nice, but pales in comparison to playing against someone in the same room. Far too many 360 games have a complete lack of local multiplayer support, and that's just stupid. Oh, and the real problem w/ 13 year olds playing shooters isn't that they've got so much more time to practice, but the fact that most shooters degenerate to twitch reflexes more than strategy, so the hyperactive 13 years olds are great at them. You'll notice a lot less of them performing well at strategy or fighting games.