Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo Already Anticipating Holiday Wii Shortages
As we approach the holiday season, Nintendo has already said that they don't expect to keep up with demand for the Wii console. In an interview with the LA Times, Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime said they're ramping up production by 33% already, with further increases planned. They're hoping to avoid the scarcity of Wii's that occurred last year, which cost them a great deal of money in potential sales. "We're now producing 2.4 million units a month worldwide. Last year, we made 1.6 million a month. So we've made a 33% increase. One of our competitors projects they will sell 10 million consoles worldwide this year. For us, that's three months of production. We're producing an unprecedented level of hardware to try to meet demand."
To me, there is a serious problem with the Wii.
I've not checked many review sites so if I'm bringing up a biased, poor review site by all means, reject what I'm saying:
2 years in and according to Gamespot only 8 games have made a score over 8.5 - 12 if you count 8.5
This is woeful. You go to the Wii section in any store and the shelves are stocked with what I deem "exploitware". That is, poorly designed games attempting to sucker the Wii mass market into buying games based on advertised novel mechanics (that rarely work).
A year ago, you could forgive this type of situation on the industry having not caught up with the prolific popularity of the console. Now, I find myself losing faith in the Wii. With all the Mario lineup accounted for and Smash Bros done, a "not completely awesome" Metroid. What do we have to look forward to?
Url may or may not work for you (localised) http://au.gamespot.com/reviews.html?type=reviews&platform=1031&mode=all&sort=score&dlx_type=all&sortdir=asc&official=all
I record my sleeptalking
Tell me about it, I mean just look at their sales for the last two years... oh wait.
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
The 360 in its simplest form is missing quite a bit of capability. Notably, Live Arcade and such is mostly useless without a hard drive. PS3 is the most robust system, but costs so much and has so few games it is hard to sell. Wii is kind of perfect, even with the large quantity of shovelware crap 3rd parties are putting out.
I don't think you understand how many Wiis Nintendo is producing. Let me draw a comparison for you.
In the eight years that the PS2 has been available, it has sold about 140 million units. That's a lot by game console standards. In fact, it's a lot by the standards of pretty much any electronic device ever mass marketed. The PS2 is the most popular console in the history of video games.
To reach that lofty level of 140 million in 8 years, it would have taken a manufacturing capacity of ~1.5 million units per month. Nintendo is producing 2.4 million units per month. If Nintendo maintains that rate, they will produce 115.2 million consoles in the next 4 years. That's in addition to the 30 million consoles already on the market. That right there is over 145 million consoles in 6 years.
I will reiterate that the assumption is that production stays steady. However, Nintendo has already promised additional increases in production! Unless there is a massive and sudden drop-off in demand, Nintendo will not only be exceeding the record set by the PS2, they will shatter it to pieces.
I hope that clarifies the situation.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
(sigh)
Here we go again... slashdotters that appear to have no clue with math and/or real-world economics. I'll try to make this brief...
1) Using your numbers, the ps2 has been in production ~ 100 months now, for an avg. of 1 million/month. The SNES sold 50 million over over5 years, averaging ~ 1 million/per month. Wii production WAS 1.6 million/month last year, and is NOW at 2.4 million/month. Wii production started around 1 million/month and has only been increasing, thus Nintendo is already putting units out at an unprecedented rate compared to any system current or past.
2) Factories and production capability don't just appear out of thin air. They take time and money to build. A built factory with no demand is a bad investment, and Nintendo rarely makes bad investments. Building more manufacturing lines just for the holiday rush is bad business. Good business is to stockpile over the summer.
3) When people buy a product as fast as it is produced you can't build up a stockpile for holiday sales. Thus, more shortages when demand spikes. THERE IS NO DELIBERATE SHORTAGE. JUST STRONG SALES AND PREDICTABLE ECONOMICS.
Sorry for the yelling, but its a bit annoying that every Wii story that pops up is filled with people claiming conspiracy. When the demand is high and production is down, then you might have a point.
Expanding manufacturing lines costs money and depending on the unit price and the expected sales volume that may not be profitable. Since the Wii was "available" during the year that suggests the non-christmas demand is about equal to the manufacturing capacity being used, increasing capacity for christmas only and having superfluous capacities afterwards can be pretty unprofitable.
I'll do the same thing I did last-gen. I'll buy whichever is the most-popular console when it hits $199. And I'll buy the Nintendo Wii if it's either $100 flat or $150 with a free game.
That's a contradiction, the Wii is the most popular console. The DS hasn't seen a price drop since release (maybe the old DS back when it was obsoleted by the DS lite), all signs point towards Nintendo using the same strategy for the Wii.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.