Slashdot Mirror
Where are Wii?
WirePosted writes "Santa is in trouble, it looks like supplying the Christmas need for a Nintendo Wii game console is in jeopardy as stocks wither under constant and heavy demand. Conspiracy believers suggest this is an orchestrated move on behalf of Nintendo." Since this happens to be what I want for Christmas, I hope they work it out, or my loving wife has already found one.
Two things jump out at me in this article. The first is that this once again proves that Gartner is worse than useless. The second is that they left out one element. Take a look at Amazon or over at ebay. There are literaly thousands of Wiis that have been purchased by people for no other reason than turning around and selling them above retail. This has been going on for quite a while, though the prices have really spiked in recent weeks. I think they were averaging around $350 on Amazon for quite a while, as opposed to the over $500 now. And the number for sale there has greatly increased. I think some people may end up still holding them after the holidays though, because part of the appeal of the wii is the price. If I'm going to drop $600 on a console - I might as well get a 360 with some games or a PS3 that can play all those PS2 games out there.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I saw plenty of them yesterday at Guanghua Market in Taipei. The going rate here seems to be 10500 NTD.
Search first, ask questions later.
There are lots of Wiis in stock in shops in Sweden. Where do you want them sent?
... )
(Seriously, I have no idea what Nintendo is up to, but claiming there's a severe shortage of PAL Wiis in the UK with lots of PAL Wiis available in other countries - only the plug on the AC adapter differs - doesn't sound right. Add a firmware flash and then the same hardware would become NTSC
it's in my head
Any one remember Buzz Lightyear and the Furbies?
Same shit every Christmas just with a different name. Kids want the same 'cool' toy, so mothers (and some times fathers, but usually mothers) turn up at Toys 'r' US at 3am every day waiting for the next shipment then end up in near fist fights over it. It's been going on for as many years as I can remember, the only difference is the cost of the wii is much greater than the cost of a Furby or Buzz Lightyear was.
But hey, I already have a Wii and want a 360 this year, so I'm quite happy to watch the same story over again, except this time it's on slashdot instead of the local news.
I like muppets.
Over in the UK supply isn't bad (although so tight that Nintendo are considering dropping all adverts to keep demand down), don't expect to get one from the first shop you go to (unbundled anyway) but a bit of work to find out which day stock is arriving to which retailers and you can pick one up. E-bay prices are only about £20 over RRP. Supply seems even better over in Europe, many are ordering through Amazon's German wing.
The real shortage over here are certain games, Wii Play and High School Musical currently go for silly money on E-bay and Amazon.
Ii'm iin Saiint Louiis. Slashdot iis iin Dexter, Miichiigan. And the capiital of the Uniited States iis iin Washiington, DC.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I don't see a shortage here, really... Watching the other replies in this thread, I wonder how common problem this really is.
The retail price hasn't shot up for the holidays either. http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?pu=48126
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Urban legends tell us that console manufacturers make no profit on the console but recoup the losses on games. Of course, various articles over the years have debunked that belief, and the general message seems to be that Nintendo was making a healthy profit on the Wii LAST year when they started selling it. With the reduction in cost on the various components, it can only be better this time around.
The simple fact is that Nintendo has underestimated demand YET ANOTHER time. It's not as though they were the only ones who made this mistake - tons of third party companies jumped in around July and August this year to announce that they'd be releasing titles for the Wii now (presumably they hadn't been onboard earlier because they expected it to be a failure). Analysts have been continuously stating that the Wii would "lose steam" when people got over the novelty. It never happened. Now demand is through the roof again, and it's a tough problem. Getting the output just right for the holiday season is tricky - too few and you're left with the current situation, but too many and you'll have factories sitting idle after the fact. Couple all of that with the problem other posters have mentioned, ebay and Amazon "scalping" of Wiis, and you've got more difficult problem than you might first think.
Bottom line: Nintendo makes good money on every Wii sold. Every Wii sold at holiday season also likely represents at least one more wiimote+nunchuk combo sale, which nets them even more cash, not to mention the additional games. But obviously Nintendo would rather turn down millions in profit so that they can keep the system "elite" or some such business. This is starting to sound like the old underwear gnomes business model meme.
Think of this way, if it helps: RockBand is also selling out like crazy. EA and Harmonix have publicly stated that they can't make enough to satisfy demand. They make a profit on the package. Do you think they're not selling more as part of some brilliant plan to make it even cooler?
I put mine (6 months old) up on Craigslist a week ago, and I had cash for it within 4 hours. I didn't want to screw anyone, so I put it up there for retail. (On the other hand, recouping 100% of your money on a product that you used for 6 months is not anything to sneeze at.)
_sig_ is away
Yeah, it's crazy. Nintendo has indeed pulled all Wii ads in the UK.
When was the last time a company decided to stop advertising a product because they were selling too much of it?
Probably a good move, there are already some pretty pissed off people out there as it is.
Price in the US: USD 249
Price in Europe: EUR 249
The profit margin is much higher in Europe (even after accounting for VAT). It makes sense to give priority to the countries where the profit margin is highest.
Don't you mean Saiint Lou-wii?
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
"Conspiracy believers suggest this is an orchestrated move on behalf of Nintendo"
Then they would be idiots, do people think that when someone sells one on ebay for £320 (as I have seen happen, that's more than the PS3) they send off a nice cheque to nintendo just to say "thanks"? no. Nintendo loses money on each of these (since they only get the original sale and after the inflated price people are less likely to buy a lot of games). Nintendo really wants to meet demand, it's stupid to suggest otherwise.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I just came from the mall and each and every tech store has Wii on the shelf. Even with our enormous VAT (%18), it's very cheap and you can find plenty of them with Sports pack included for 699 TL (approx. USD590) On the open market you can have it for USD450 without the Sports pack. -- http://www.internet.gen.tr/
Why would Nintendo want to sell more units than it takes to meet their projected sales for the quarter?
I wrote up a good explanation on how to score a wii:
http://binaryspiral.com/2007/12/01/how-to-get-a-wii-before-christmas
It's already worked for me and three other co-workers... YMMV.
I took a business class in which Nintendo was used as real world example for how they controlled prices for a release of Zelda. If I remember correctly it went something like this:
Nintendo tells retailers "we're going to produce X amount by Christmas, give us your orders." Wal-Mart tells them, "we're big and will sell a lot of games, give us a huge number of them at a ridiculously low price. Otherwise, we won't carry it and you won't sell enough of them to make any money."
Nintendo hates this, of course. So, they cut back sharply on production of the game. Closer to Christmas they tell the retailers, "oops, we only have Y amount. It's not enough for what we already know everybody wants. Give us your desired quantities with your _best_ price in Z days."
Walmart just lost their leverage. Nintendo sells fewer cartridges but at a significantly better price than Walmart was offering. Not as good as they originally wanted but better than Walmart's offer.
Something similar is probably happening here. The Wii could easily move in huge volume but the retailers would want a lower price. As long as:
you'll have a hard time finding a Wii.
Funny, they said that all of last year, too.
How's that profit? Nintendo isn't selling them at the dynamic market price, they're selling them at MSRP plus they make a hefty chunk of change on game sales which rely heavily on the hardware sales (also other developers will scale their support according to the hardware sales which means more or fewer games and more or fewer hardware sales in the future). It doesn't make sense for them to short the supply, they're making less money with constrained supply.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It's neither new nor rare. It happens almost every Christmas to one "big toy," it's just that it's rarely something the Slashdot crowd cares about. All the way back to Tickle Me Elmo over a decade ago - and the year after that, it was the Barbie Fashion Designer CD-ROM, and then something new nearly every year since. Actually, Tickle Me Elmo was only the start of the most recent wave - ask anyone who had a kid in the early 80's how much they paid for a Cabbage Patch Kid doll, and that was pre-eBay.
Outside of Christmas, there have been plenty of "collectible" toys that have been scalped - look at Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards. I'm a Barbie collector, and in the late 90's the hobby became trendy for a bit. Employees of Target, Wal-Mart, etc would buy up dolls as soon as the boxes were open and put them on eBay before actual shoppers even got a chance at them. My dad has actually done the same for Hot Wheels.
Trust me, for most of the parents looking for a Wii, this isn't a new experience. It's just that this time, maybe it's something they'd like to play with, too.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Ah, somebody who hasn't been able to find a Wii for sale.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I highly doubt that it's a ploy orchestrated by Nintendo. I work at a Best Buy and last week we got a shipment of 63 Wii's that were supposed to last us 2/3 weeks. They lasted 15 minutes. The thing of it is retail stores get shipments randomly from Nintendo. We never have any idea when or how many Wii's we'll be getting for the coming weeks. It's not that they're shorting you, it's just that the demand is still that high.
I should've snapped a picture the on friday, when I was in my local electronics store, and a good pile of Wii boxes were sitting right there, waiting for buyers.
In other words: Just because the media write about it doesn't mean it's true.
Or maybe it's because I'm in Europe and for some reason logistics and the supply chain work better here. I doubt that, though, given how much we've all become alike in those regards. Same companies running the same business using the same software to decide how much to ship where.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org