There Is No Wii Supply Conspiracy: Fils-Aime

[Junaid Alam]

There Is No Wii Supply Conspiracy: Fils-Aime

Nintendo of America's head commented on the Wii's lack of availability, saying it, and not a company conspiracy, is hurting sales.

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime conceded in candid comments that the company is losing sales due to supply shortages and denied there was a calculated effort to restrict production.

"They aren't going to sleep outside of a store overnight or visit a retailer five or six times. It is literally a missed opportunity," he said.

Nintendo just came off a highly successful Thanksgiving sales week, moving 350,000 of the systems along with 653,000 portable handheld DSes for the week ending November 24.

Fils-Aime said the Wii's scarcity was simply a function of trying to play "catch up."

"There is no secret plan to store Wiis in a warehouse to spur demand. The company, after all, is trying to reach out to women and 40 and 50-year olds who aren't avid gamers," Fils-Aime said, adding that this demographic is not going to camp out in front of retail stores to buy systems.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31044]

Permalink

 

[Arbre]

Quick people! Grab one before there's no more!

 

[Ironmaus]

Since the demand already exists and Nintendo makes a profit on every console, there's no need to play games with the public. I don't know why this would even be a rumor.

 

[CarlosYenrac]

replace nintendo with a four letter word starting with 's' and it sounds like a plausible rumour though....

 

[Lance Icarus]

Nintendo hasn't been on top of the charts for a long time until this generation. Why would they play around with the sales charts now? It doesn't make any sense for them to withhold product during the holiday season.

 

[Arbre]

Thing is, I find it odd that they couldn't get the industrial assets that would allow enough consoles to be churned out per month, to fit with the demand. It's not like the product is particularily innovative either.

 

[LordOmnit]

Well, if Yahtzee was right in asserting that Nintendo has enough money to buy the Earth and all the heavens, then it kind of is a conspiracy, since it wouldn't be hard to chuck a little money around to get more out of it, but they aren't.
Although I'm not sure how to read it, since the article seems to say that they are selling EVERY system they have, it doesn't seem to make much sense that they wouldn't just (freaking) make more. If one of their target audiences isn't going to sleep in front of a store for six hours, then make enough so they don't have to.
How much more simple is it?
And even if they didn't have enough money in store to make more, then how could they not now if they are in a shortage of the systems due to 100% sales?

 

[Arbre]

Well, if Yahtzee was right in asserting that Nintendo has enough money to buy the Earth and all the heavens, then it kind of is a conspiracy, since it wouldn't be hard to chuck a little money around to get more out of it, but they aren't.
Although I'm not sure how to read it, since the article seems to say that they are selling EVERY system they have, it doesn't seem to make much sense that they wouldn't just (freaking) make more. If one of their target audiences isn't going to sleep in front of a store for six hours, then make enough so they don't have to.
How much more simple is it?
And even if they didn't have enough money in store to make more, then how could they not now if they are in a shortage of the systems due to 100% sales?

Simple: they could not foresee how orgasmicly good their console would be.
Even one year later, they still haven't digested the sheer awesomeness of their new baby.

Of course, since it's that good, you'd be really st00pid not to buy one.

 

[LordOmnit]

Of course, since it's that good, you'd be really st00pid not to buy one.

Or really pooooooooooor. =(