Slashdot Mirror
Weak US Dollar Means Nintendo Favors Europe For Now
timeOday writes "The LA Times is reporting that the new Nintendo Wii Fit is hard to find on US shelves, due not only to strong demand but also the United States' declining status in the world economy: '"[Nintendo] is also is shrewdly maximizing its profit by sending four times as many units to Europe, reaping the benefits of the strong euro," says Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. "The shortage demonstrates one consequence of the weak dollar. We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere."'"
I feel like a Canadian
how long until US quarters get stuck/rejected by Canadian vending machines and laundermat washing machines
that Europe won't recieve everything 4-12 months later than Japan and the US? Still waiting for SSB:B...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
So vote Ron Paul, the only candidate that understands economics
I wonder if this has anything to do with Bush running up trillions in debt and making everyone hate us?
Play Command HQ online
Weak U.S. Dollar Means Everyone Favors Europe Now
Thanks to the world's largest crime syndicate.
Support the troops: Send the White House AND Congress to Gitmo !
Cordially,
K. Trout, PatRIOT
Just wait 'til I get through with it ...
What?
The Wii is a fucking joke.
I have never seen one on any store shelves since release.
Seven months after release my friend wanted one..so we found out when the local Kmart (least busy department store in the area) would get their shipment. We show up before they open and wait at the door. Yes, they received their shipment before they opened. And yes, they were sold out. All ten units were purchased by three employees. You can guess where these ended up.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
It will all end on Jan 20, 2009, when our new shiny young eloquent energetic (black, not that it matters) president will turn water into wine. Scratch that. "make environment for others to turn water into wine".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Europeans are already fit! Wii need it here so we can earn our dubba-chee!
I hate how Europe always gets shafted, especially when it comes to gaming.
Rarely do we ever get a title released here first, even titles that were developed here tend to get released in the USA first.
What's more, Nintendo, Sony AND Microsoft have all indicated that they don't care for Europe.
Sony is probably the worst offender, by giving us a stripped down PS3 at nearly twice the price as the US and Japan (There's only so much "tax" and "import costs" can account for).
Rock band is actually cheaper to import from the US than it is to buy in the shops (it's almost twice the price when you buy the set and the game!). This is really nothing new, but it's still infuriating the way we get treated.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
If there is such strong demand, why not raise the price?
And as the EU imports more consoles, the euro will decrease in value, while the dollar should appreciate because Americans are buying less products oversees...
Am I the only that imagined Kyle from southpark say in response, "You... Asshole..."
Maybe we europeans will finally get some games before the US.
I'd have expected the headline to say "Nintento Favours Europe"
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
It all depends on what you want to measure. If you take:
and the best profits are to be had in Europe, then it sounds like, for this product at this time at least, Europe is indeed the "largest market".
"sending four times as many units to Europe, reaping the benefits of the strong euro.. We're seeing companies ignore their largest market"
if nintendo sells four times as many units in europe than in the us, and for better price, wouldn't that make europe far larger market for nintendo than the us, no?
Finally we'll get releases before US. Trust me, it will lead to that.
Turns out Europe overtook the US gaming market for FY2007.
I hate hearing the whining of the article repeated elsewhere: "We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere." That link I just posted says Japan is #1 in sales at $11.5 B USD, Europe is #2 at $11.4 B USD and US only pulled in $10.7 B USD. So companies aren't ignoring their largest market; they're giving the leftovers to the third largest market. Deal.
There is no correlation between a weak dollar and the strength or status of the U.S. in the world economy. A weak dollar is not inherently bad either as it makes our exports more attractive and competitive.
It always amazes me. When the dollar is strong everyone says the U.S. is loosing economic power because of trade imbalances (weak exports). When the dollar is weak and trade exports are much higher, then people claim the U.S. is loosing economic power because of the weak dollar. Obviously neither interpretation is accurate. A strong dollar can be good and bad, a weak dollar can be good and bad. In this case American video game exporters are probably benefiting from less competition from Nintendo.
Such simplistic interpretations remind me of mercantilist theory, which is similairly idiotic. Carry on.
It's also a weak MARKET issue. As a recession hits, the market for toys tends to dwindle. As a larger portion of 18 to 30 year olds serve in foreign engagements, the market for toys for that age group tends to dwindle too.
Nobody spent their economic incentive checks. That's pretty much all anybody needs to know.
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
What kind of joke is this? Nintendo favoring European market? With games like 10$ more expensive, horrible translation works and one year late in most cases? We still didn't even get Smash Brothers Brawl and everyone got tired of it already. Etrian Odyssey is here when the second part is almost out in the US...and more expensive of course, just to mention a few examples.
And, don't come back at me saying "You got X game in Europe first", because it's one every 100, and generally done as "market test" or to be able to pull out something on the "hot" season (summer, Christmas).
They aren't favoring us at all, it's just their enterprise speak that is trying to make you think so.
"We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere."
Presumably, shortly the US will no longer be the world's largest market. I think Europe has already overtaken in in many ways....
And wait til China/India come on line...
"largest market"? Last I checked, the EU had more inhabitants than the USA.
Just saying.
The US is a war-driven ecomony, which is unfortunate on many fronts, let alone creating weapons and systems that kill innocents en masse -- there's an associated brain drain, and the goods created in most cases have no material use that would enhance wealth -- but rather, these devices are designed to destroy wealth as well as human lives.
China has manufacturing capability up the ying-yang (no pun intended), and as I've stated before, if they were to choose to stop propping up the USD, the US would have far more to loose than they would. Also keep in mind the Euro markets that they could -- and probably are -- transistion to if they're smart.
No, I'm afraid this is a different situation. It might be "ok" for the dollar to have *some* weakness from time to time, but you can't tell me it would be fine if the bottom fell out on the dollar entirely.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
and our economy has successfully been attacked and destroyed
First went the unions, then went the blue collar manufacturing, and now the white collar jobs are leaving due to outsourcing. And all so the top 1% can have their annual 15% increase in income while having their taxes dramatically reduced under Regan and Bush II, while the rest of us have seen our payroll taxes go up. Smashing, yea capitalism.
americans who raise their hackles when faced with the scarcity of a video game console
the very existence of this story is a sign of the decline of american society
"where's my blinking flashing noisy shiny drug!?"
you can rest assured any serious society on the move isn't obsessing over video game consoles
now go ahead, mod me a troll. prove me yet more right
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3612/analyze_this_is_the_video_game_.php?print=1
If game companies favour Europe, then please tell me why games are released months late here, and at nearly twice the price. And why consoles such as the PS3 are massively crippled.
Face it, game companies, Nintendo included, hate Europe.
Make more open-source games that are fun. Adults don't need Grand Theft Auto nor do children need mario or sponegob squarepants, The Pop-culture is what is ruining gaming.
Why is this surprising? US companies have been doing this in reverse for a few centuries: this is why so many products are available in the USA which are unheard-of in Europe. It's not just American insularity, although that may be a component: it's just what the companies fondly believe to be market forces (usually they're wrong anyway, but that's the principle).
If you want to make a market back over there, you'll have to lower prices over here, to make it less profitable, what a shame that'd be.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Your post is so reactionary and simple-minded that it certainly seems to have been written by an American, short on rationality as it is. In fact, in the last day or so /. has had several posts like yours modded up because they say absurd things such as the high cost of oil is due in part to the restrictions on domestic drilling.
If you think the US economy is in the shitter because of environmental protections you are an embarrassment to the genetic legacy your ancestors have bequeathed you.
The US economy is in the craphole because of the massive debt that has been leveraged against insolvent debtors. This came in the form of the mortgage crisis and its effects have reverberated and multiplied through the banking system. This has led to a crisis in commercial credit which has taken away the ability of consumers to fuel the economy which further erodes the ability of the banking system to maintain solvency. The causes of the credit crisis caused by the tanking of the mortgage system has not yet finished and we are likely to see much worse before it stops.
Regarding the offshoring of manufacturing and environmentalism, the real impact of environmental legislation in the United States is not to preserve non-human species, but to protect humans themselves. Look at the places where mining companies, steel refineries, chemical manufacturing plants, and pulp mills have operated and what you'll find are poisoned water tables and insanely elevated cancer rates. Additionally, the relative low-production of minerals from mining is due mainly to evisceration of the lands where valuable resources once existed, not due to the governmental restrictions on development.
For you to say something like "the tree huggers over her taking so much power" is laughable. Opening all the protected lands in the US would to natural resource exploitation do virtually nothing to fix the GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS let alone the paltry problem of the US economy stumbling against the stronger European economy. The kind of neanderthal thinking that bad economic times can generate amongst people is amazing and your post is an example of such stupidity.
Environmentalism has not caused the US economic crisis. Bad banking practice has.
blog
If so, why does Apple not sell iPhones in Europe first? I think iPhone is more expensive than Wii Fit. The more probable reason is they have limited quantities now and want to match their inventory with size of market to prevent disappointment and frustration.
Yeah, but you guys also get games that I wish I could get here in the US. European game developers tend to gives games much better plot lines than the US game developers. For instance, I love the X series, and I had to scour the local games shops to find a copy of X2 and X3. Games with plots just don't sell as well here as games with explosions. Give me a well thought out plot before explosions, I say. That means I'm usually relying on German and UK based companies to deliver the goods.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
... they love Europe, because you guys are willing to pay twice as much!
Queue sound of music stopping to a screech...
"Toyota has stated it will build a new factory in Canada instead of the US because of concerns US workers are less skilled."
"Toyota President calls American's stupid"
http://forums.motortrend.com/70/38630/the-general-forum/toyota-president-calls-americans-stupid/index.html
In the 1940s, the US was the only country whose factories were humming instead of smoldering. We were replenishing the capital stock of the entire west, that took a few decades. US marketshare for manufacturing declined DESPITE INCREASING because everyone else started manufacturing again as they rebuilt their bombed out infrastructure.
"how it's made" largely showcases canadian companies
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
You're ignoring the fact that games are already translated to many languages when distributed in Europe.
Heck, even in Mexico, where we usually got games in English, we're getting Nintendo titles in Mexican Spanish.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
OPEC is doing this with their oil as well.
Nobody wants dollars any more. That their value hasn't collapsed completely is due to the fact that every foreign national banking system has a vault full of dollars. Unloading them all at once would be the biggest run on the banking system you've ever seen. So oil (and many other commodity) producers 'officially' trade their product in dollars. Unless you happen to have Euros, Yuan, or some other desirable currency. Then you get a discount.
Have gnu, will travel.
...they put in planes where the companies that own and run them (civil airlines) are all going broke? And any military uses are a negative to the economy, it isn't wealth producing, it is wealth destroying, although a small percentage get money from it, overall,military and governmental spending is a net loss in general productivity. 20 years from now flying will be reserved for the ultra rich and the military bloodletting retards, the wall street and equivalent in other nations muscle boys. Cheap energy is *over*, the planet earth will be going through a major restructuring. Enjoy cheap toys and cheap travel (and cheap food) now, it is about gone for most people. Price of crude today means 6 buck a gallon gas US in the US by the end of the summer, meaning 10-12 dollars equivalent in europe, and it still hasn't stopped rising. Those speculators don't give a shit, they want to see 200 buck a barrel, they don't care, they think it won't affect them. Idiots, never even learned the early fairly tale (teaching basic economics to children) of the goose that laid the golden eggs, they want it all now, and who cares about the future.
..back in the day they delivered C64s to Europe first because the Brits and Germans were stupid enough to pay twice as much as the Americans were prepared to pay.
This seems to happen across the board.
Shame we're not clever enough to refuse to buy stuff until it's on price parity with US and/or Japan.
... is the fact that the UK too used to get most games 1 year after the USA. And don't think that any actually got internationalized to UK English and voice actors with UK accents. Mostly it was the US game, 1 year later. No idea if that's still the case, but it wouldn't surprise me too much.
Even weirder was buying a US import version of Sega's PSO for the Dreamcast, over half a year IIRC before it got released in Europe. The weird thing is: the US version already had all the language options. I don't mean just that it also had Spanish, but it also had German and French. So someone from the USA could jolly well play the game in German or French, but the people in Germany or France weren't supposed to.
Exactly what they needed that delay for, I don't even know. Certainly not for translations.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This isn't at all a symptom of the relative weakness of the dollar to the Euro, it's actually a perfect example of the complex self-regulation mechanisms of the global market.
More Wiis in Europe -> More gaming options for Europeans -> More gaming hours for Europeans -> Less working hours for Europeans -> Less, and lower quality, European goods -> Less demand for European goods on the US market -> Stronger dollar relative to the Euro.
So what's the problem?
That might be more due to weakeaning of Reality Distortion Field after crossing Atlantic. Really, while number of Macs or iPods around me does inrease slightly, they're usually "just another laptop, but boy, expensive one"/same for iPod. Last iPod I've seen was at Apple conference in September, Mac - January, and I haven't ever seen iPhones here.
One that hath name thou can not otter
The price of ammunition has shot up dramatically too due to the weak US dollar. Making it just that more difficult to fund a revolution.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Europe gets the shaft in gaming compared to Japan and the US. Hopefully things will balance out and we won't be treated like lepers by gaming companies.
I really meant blood, but I didn't want to seem overly melodramatic. On the other hand, blood is the cost of the way we do business today - do you have any idea of what percentage of the shit we buy from China is produced in government-owned-and-operated forced labor camps filled predominantly with people whose primary crime is that they were the nails sticking up the farthest and they needed laborers? People are literally put into labor camps for being Christians... where they make the plastic shit that we hang on our christmas trees.
What the fuck is that? Please show me where you got that information on China putting people into labour camps to produce commodity goods?Excuse me for saying this, but that paragraph makes you look like an ignorant dumbass. China is booming because, surprise, surprise, they embraced capitalism, and Chinese companies work very hard and pay very low wages, and their products sell well because of the resulting low prices. China is not a free country and open your mouth and criticise the government too much and you will get arrested, but they actually have a Chinese branch of the Catholic church (the Vatican and China have resolved a lot of their differences).
The last time China put people into labour camps for being Christian was during the Cultural Revolution, about 40 years ago.
You know, if people like you would actually read the news on occasion, and pay a little attention to what's happening beyond your borders, your economy might profit as a result of that enlightening knowledge.
I've been trying to buy one of those Wii Fits that are supposedly all over Europe and I can't find any for sale in the UK.
Amazon.de has some, that's all I can find. No English versions anywhere.
I'm sure some 'leet slashdotter knows where there's a secret stash in the UK, and they may even tell me, but that doesn't change the fact that they're effectively unobtainable in the UK too.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
I thought the way to improve a country's economy was to encourage other countries to buy products made here? And to discourage our own countrymen from buying abroad? (all that "buy Made In The USA" noise we hear)
What part of this (what Nintendo is doing) is bad?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
They don't? I must have been dreaming when my father in law showed off his iPhone today.... (I live in the EU, just in case you wonder...)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Interested:
Which State is this?
Why do people confuse "England" and "United Kingdom" so much and use the terms interchangeably? (for your own health and safety, please don't make this mistake when visiting Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland)
Curious... thanks in advance...
We import too much stuff anyways.
Yes, well, here in Mexico we enjoy a nearly 100% markup over US prices (the Wii is US $470 and Wii Fit will run you US $150). And indeed you can see mountains of boxes in stores, even walmart stocks tons of wiifits and wiis. So while a lot of them will languish for a while on the shelf, Nintendo knows that those who sell will give them a really huge profit. By ignoring the economic reality of the country, where a cheaper console would indeed move a larger number of unis, they maximize their profit by catering to those who would indeed pay those sums for the console. Sadly that excludes about 98% of the population.
Is that really the best you could come up with? Dick smoking Euro?
Surely a man of your vast intellect could come up with a better slur for European than simply "Euro"? It's the name of the currency used in most of Europe, it's hardly offensive.
It'd be like me calling you a dollah or something.
I can only give you 4/10 for that attempted flame, please try harder.
Laws, no matter how they are written, are still just ideas. When it comes to knowledge and power, people will not let anothers idea stand in the way of their own. This concept can lead to innovation, revolution and even war.
...they're spending more time on SOCIAL NETWORKS.
YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, SecondLife, blogging, chat rooms, etc.
Camping on quad since 1996.
10. They can't make them hold that much weight. ....
9. They can just sell empty boxes and nobody will notice.
8. They think its pointless.
7. They will get sued for all the heart attacks.
6. They are trying to add a hamburger eating exercise.
5. They want to print a McRap coupon for every 10seconds of use.
4. They won't be able to sell Super Mario if there are no fat americans.
"We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere"
Wiki indicates that there are approximately 495 million people[1] within the borders of the EU member states.
So America is not really "their largest market". The conversion rate is much more in favor of the EU residents.
We'll get our Wii Fits eventually, but only after people whos dollars are worth more than ours.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union
From the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. And in the form of scrap metal sent over in containers that brought shoes on their trip east.
The housing crisis was largely a result of a problem we had long before then: Our traditional industries were dying/leaving and the only thing holding our economy together was people's ability to borrow against their houses and continue to spend like drunken sailors. I have no idea how we are going to pull out of this. When I go to a store it is REALLY hard to find something that says "Made in USA" on it (and I look almost every time I am planning on buying something.) In fact, I don't know of any industry where we are a true leader anymore except tobacco and weapons. These are not the kinds of products I would like to see us associated with. The loss of all those manufacturing jobs means that there is a river of money flowing out of the US instead of into it. We have borrowed tons of money to buy our cheap, made in Asia toys and OPEC oil. Now they have so much of our currency that they must be wallpapering their walls with it. This has naturally led to a decrease in the value of that green wallpaper.
I never thought I'd see the effects of the US/OPEC deal made by Henry Kissinger effecting my video game availability, but here it is. The US is so screwed, yesterday we were happy paying for the National Debt through the gas pump, today we're sad we can't get our damned Wii Fit. What's next? Microsoft goes bankrupt? Sheesh
Ron Paul - US Economic Fate:
http://www.ronpaulwarroom.com/?p=1727
How the US is run by American Corporations, not politicians:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8668319287834598272&q=&hl=en
John Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=589608024067160205&q=&hl=en
That's only one part of a long list of US/EU changes we've been seeing recently.
Here's another one: For many years, the price of Apple products was the same in US$ and Euro. It stayed the same even when the Euro was already 1.2:1 over the US$. That changed last year.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Where the hell is the EU? and what language do they speak there? Oh, that's right "the EU" is an attempt to temporarily bloster the failing economies of Western Europe by creating a unified currency and giving up autonomy. Maybe that's why all the people that live "in the EU" sound like socialists. You better be proud of the EU because that is all you have left. Talk about sell-outs. But then again giving up your country whenever the going gets tough is not a new concept in "the EU."
I have a feeling this might get modded down. But I figure the only way anyone sees anything written pro-america around here is with threshold -1 anyway.
It seems like just a lightening rod for trolls and self-righteous tard trolls. Whya re these comments marked interestign and insightful?
Alabamanians tend to be thought of as stupid by most Americans too. It wouldn't surprise me if the IQ/per capita there is a bit lower. Why build a manufacturing plant there? Having said that, no matter where you go most people are very, very stupid. No exceptions. Although if there were to be an exception it might be Japan. Anyway, he didn't actually call Americans stupid.
Nintendo is offering identical appliances whereas Sony is milking the consumer in Europe.
The US has about 300 million people versus Europe with over 720 million. This could have some impact on these sales figures, the European Union (since everyone wants to compare how a large batch of countries are doing compared to one country).
:)
Also note the Xbox 360 sold 10 million units in the US with less than 2 million sold in Europe. Perhaps we could turn this around and say European markets must be failing because a singular product isn't doing as well in their market? It wouldn't be sane. Nor is the majority of this thread.
I know everyone wants to bash the US and pretend like everyone is a little George Bush, but keep in mind, the pendulum swings back and forth. If folks who want to bash on the US look back a few years, Americans weren't bashing on your nations while economic times were tough, while some of you were sitting under rather shitty governments, etc. From what I saw, people here were out in the streets protesting and wanting more fairness in the world markets, regardless what the tiny sector of people we call our leadership wanted.
What concerns me is that the average Joe six-pack will eventually get tired of hearing anti-American sentiment and continue voting for loose cannon leadership and it'll be a day we all live to regret. This is why the average person in the US has been taught to not hate the people, only the governments, of places we have disagreements with for several generations now.
Then again, I am sometimes tempted to go NeoCon after playing video games online while the sun is up in Europe. Nothing like being nice, contributing to a game and getting nothing but "STUPAD AMERIKKKAN U SUCK ASS U FUKKER", "I HOPE TERRORISTS BLOW YOUR SORRY COUNTRY UP" or any number of mindless, violent words from even team mates about where I live from an endless stream of, for the most part, adult European gamers because they picked up on my accent. It's also notable that US gamers rarely pick on Europeans, as most of us consider them cousins, or whatever, since most of our ancestry comes from there. Just like in this thread.
simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere
That's not "simply", that's real life. Just as like so large speculations have begun in the raw materials and oil businnesses when the USD began to weaken - and it still goes on - this is also another proof that shows that one by one, everyone is beginning to transition to the euro from the usd, which is really not such a bad thing, if you think in global terms and not just in what is the best for the US terms. It's high time the US started paying normal prices for the humongous amounts of gas they eat up (trucks and DoD/Pentagon included) and see what happens when not everything goes how they would like it to go.
Well hey, look on the bright side: if the US dollar value keeps plummeting, corporations will start outsourcing their computer work there.
I thought for shits and grins I'd talk about, you know, Nintendo - since the article is about Nintendo. I think it's just stupid. I saw an advertisement for the Fit the other day on television. Why waste money advertising? They're effectively not being sold in the US. If anything, the advertisement was a boon to all of the scalpers who are selling them for $170 on eBay, Amazon, etc. Nintendo could be selling them for $150 apeice easily. I find it hard to buy the argument that Nintendo is savvily going where the profit is, when they waste money advertising their unobtainable product, and no doubt piss off vendors like Walmart and Target (and others) who have dedicated shelf space to this non-existent item.
It's probably worth noting also that with 800,000,000 people in Europe, 332,000,000 in North America and only 120,000,000 in Japan and without the issue of poverty in Europe that plagues even larger markets like China and India, Europe is probably the best place to focus on. It really does have brightest future in terms of sales potential in the near-term. China/India will be good choices eventually, but not for another couple of decades.
...and it's not like they're all suffering from poverty as many of the high-population asian markets are.
You're right, Europe is a sensible market to focus on. Over 2, almost 3 times the population of relatively wealthy (in whole world terms) people is quite a difference!
lets not blame the weak US dollar before we blame the weak Nintendo idea. come on Nintendo, the wii isn't a hit now take your medicine.
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
This doesn't jive with what I've seen with my own eyes. In the last decade Toyota has built plants in Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Subaru is advertising it's new green plant recently built in Indiana as well. That news article sounds like BS to me.
Charge more.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
"Toyota's Woodstock, Ontario, Canada assembly plant comes online in 2008, models sold in North America will be assembled exclusively there (effective May 2009)."
>> "They know that Americans will be just as fat a few months from now" when Nintendo will have more units available, he said.
OK, let the flames begin!