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.'

Comments

One can only guess...

[7Prime]

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. I'm not saying that they didn't intentionally short the supply, but I doubt that it was for this reason alone, it's just too risky. I doubt it was to make the launch look incredible either, because they still did incredibly well, and would have sold out even if they had put twice the number of units into circulation.

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. If 5 million people get their Wii off the bat, and then have to wait 6 months for good games to start coming out, you're going to have a lot of angry people. Currently, most people are still focused on getting the damn system itself, and don't have time to bitch about the lack of games. Now that some big titles, such as Super Paper Mario, and possibly MP3 are on the horizon, they can satisfy more customers, with less public backlash.

Re:That is a double edged sword

[DDLKermit007]

Gamestop is talking out of their ass. Nintendo still can't keep with with the DS Lite in Japan, and the Lite revision has been out for over a year, and thats the last place they want to have shortages.

Re:You mean like the PS3 or XBox 360 launch?

[senatorpjt]

Then again, after a month of trying to get one, I gave up the Wii and bought a PS3 instead.

Re:artificially choking supply?

[soft_guy]

If Nintendo was really intentionally choking the supply, it would make them the biggest idiots of all time. There is a short window after launch where you are everybody's baby - if you don't make it then, then your platform will fail. Cutting off supply during this period would be beyond idiocy.

It is possible that Nintendo underestimated demand when they were reserving factory time for the Wii to be built. Then again, it is possible they just can't get enough units to market as quickly as they would like due to some factor beyond their control (this is most likely).