DailyTech - Nintendo Producing 1.8 Million Wiis Monthly, Shortages Still Expected

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Gadgets Nintendo Producing 1.8 Million Wiis Monthly, Shortages Still Expected
Marcus Yam (Blog) - November 19, 2007 5:40 PM

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47 comment(s) - last by BansheeX.. on Nov 21 at 2:05 AM

More Wii consoles than ever, but still hard to find, says Nintendo

After one year since the launch of the Wii, Nintendo is unable to keep up with customer demand. While some conspiracy theorists believe that Nintendo may be creating a shortage as a sales tactic, it’s more plausible the game maker underestimated demand for the Wii.

With the hot holiday buying season here, Nintendo fully knows that demand for its Wii console is higher than ever. Speaking to Next-Gen, Nintendo marketing chief George Harrison said that production rate of Wii is now greater than ever.

“We’re at a rate now worldwide of about 1.8 million Wiis produced every month, and that’s going to sustain itself until we get on top of this,” said Harrison. “We’re trying to make decisions on almost a weekly basis about which market to ship the product to, because in Japan it’s a big success, and same in Europe ... It’s almost an embarrassment of opportunity in terms of where to place those Wii hardware units.”

Despite injecting 1.8 million Wiis into the market every month, don’t expect the console to be easily seen sitting idly on retailer shelves. “We’re still expecting some shortages in December,” revealed Harrison. “So even though we’ll be selling everything we can get, we’ll continue full-blast with our outreach through PR, and through paid advertising and other things.”

This isn’t the first time Nintendo has warned the public of potential supply shortfalls, as the company’s American president Reggie Fils-Aime said in a previous story that “it is still going to be difficult to get your hands on the Wii” this holiday season.

The Wii isn’t the only system that Nintendo is selling with super impressive numbers – the DS handheld is just behind the Wii in monthly sales in the U.S. “For DS, we think there’s still a huge amount of potential left. We’re barely at half of the life-to-date sales that we achieved on our last generation of Game Boy,” Harrison added.

The Wii and DS are the top two selling consoles in the U.S. throughout October, selling 519,000 and 458,000 units.

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Buying it and not caring are two different things.

By gochichi on 11/19/2007 8:03:41 PM , Rating: 2

Who says that because you buy a console you love every single thing about it. I would prefer it if the Wii had some basic HD capabilities, but I think Nintendo made the right choice... it was too costly at the time and would have overrun the design, the price, the flexibility. Nintendo will release an HD console, and it will be cake for them when they do... no b/c Nintendo is so amazing, but b/c Nvidia and Ati will have technology in a year or two that will allow the Wii2 to have a cute little case, a great price tag, and still have great graphics.

Nintendo has nursed itself back to health in an amazing way. I fully believe that Nintendo should NOT sit on its laurels, the Wii is severely underpowered and far from perfect. They would do well to start considering a successor... so that it's something really great. It's inevitable that it will be very easy to make a great successor in two or three years (the time that Sony and MS will require just to maybe start breaking even).

It's nice for Nintendo that Microsoft and Sony were overly aggressive with their designs. They both feel slow and bloated, while the Wii feels peepy b/c it's so simple. MS and Sony really dropped the ball... we expected MS to not lead, but Sony really dropped the ball. So the success of the Wii is NOT b/c the Wii is so perfect, but b/c PS3 is not a gaming console, it's a Blu-ray player with a bad remote.

I will probably buy a Wii so that I can play Mario Galaxy. Wii Sports is fun... funner than Guitar Hero in my opinion.

Sony and Microsoft should be grateful for Nintendo, b/c I seriously think that the video game industry (particularly consoles) would be in a full blown downturn otherwise.

I'm expecting there to be one console next time around, and it will have Nintendo written on it. And Microsoft will make some good games for it, and maybe Sony will too. I don't know why they wouldn't all just join in behind a next gen Nintendo console... all they're doing is costing us money and loosing money at the same time.

RE: Buying it and not caring are two different things.

By StevoLincolnite on 11/19/2007 11:32:11 PM , Rating: 1

This why I love living in a Pal territory.
The Wii to me seems clearer than my 360 on my normal crappy CRT T.V - Why? Because the Wii upscales to 575P while the 360 is at 480.
The ssame thing happend last generation, with the Game Cube, Xbox, and Playstation 2 - Gamecube games just looked "Sharper".

Besides the Wii's GPU s "capable" of any effect that the 360 and PS3 can perform in its fixed function hardware anyway, just that the 360 and PS3 can perform "More" of those effects at any one time.

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Where are the stories

By shocker38 on 11/20/2007 12:13:41 PM , Rating: 2

I was thinking this the over day, I found that the art of story telling is really beginning to blossom in our new games, examples of these being Oblivion, Bioshock, Mass Effect. I have to admit I do like looking at great eye candy but I will never be put of any really good game just by the way it looks (my all time favourite being ‘Transport Tycoon’ which I still play to this very day). I think the Wii is not as innovative as everybody screams it is, okay all first party games are me 2’s or Mii2’s, I understand that they may be very good but that is in no way innovative, and accelerometers have been in shopping malls for years but you had to put a great big helmet on to experience it. I personally found that a truly great story and immerse me more that any other physical stimulation (an please Timmy from Texas just drop the comment before truly embarrassing your self). I’m not saying that the Wii can or wont but just hasn’t yet and until that day I will still only every play it when I’m at my mates having a few drinks.

PS disclaimer:- my opinions a just that opinions and are in now way fact.

The Real Shortage

By GhandiInstinct on 11/19/07, Rating: -1

RE: The Real Shortage

By weskurtz0081 on 11/19/2007 6:02:34 PM , Rating: 5

I guess 1.8million people per month just really don't care.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By deeznuts on 11/19/07, Rating: -1

RE: The Real Shortage

By erikejw on 11/20/2007 9:30:48 AM , Rating: 2

Maybe all this teach us that graphics isn't everything in a game. I know in the late 80s I had a ball when I played all those games on NES. Maybe PS3 should have been a little less graphics intense and sold for 30% less it would have been a huge success.

Quality of gameplay in games is 100% for the success of it.
It might be fun the first 15 min to watch a good looking game but then it is all gameplay that counts.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By Holytrinity on 11/19/2007 6:37:44 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I guess 1.8million people per month just really don't care.

Best reply ever?

+1

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RE: The Real Shortage

By Etsp on 11/19/2007 10:55:08 PM , Rating: 1

Almost, it should be

quote:
"I guess 1.8million additional people per month just really don't care."

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RE: The Real Shortage

By mikefarinha on 11/19/2007 6:03:00 PM , Rating: 3

"Agree or not, the wii remote is a gimmick."

I don't agree. The Wiimote is doing for the Wii what the mouse did for the Computer. Also, I use the Wiimote everyday and it is very accurate.

The Wii is much more than a gaming system, just wait until WiiFit comes out...

I don't know about everyone else but I'm glad that Nintendo made the gamble with the Wii, it really will 'revolution'ize the family living room.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By BansheeX on 11/19/07, Rating: -1

By BansheeX on 11/19/2007 7:57:47 PM , Rating: -1

I agree that it's a gimmick and does very little to simulate real life. Mouses were never useful or made much sense for certain genres like fighting games or racing games or shmups or platformers. That's why you never see fighting games on the PC. It's really only useful for aiming at things and making fast selections in real-time strategy games. That's why you see so few games on the Wii using it, even major titles like SSB. You absolutely need a gamepad with a lot of buttons to get proper control in many games and pull off sequences of moves without getting frustrated. It will never work as well as a gamepad or real mouse, which in my opinion makes it less fun to use.

The Wii is selling well with younger audiences, Nintendo fans, and people who would never normally play games. That's where all those extra sales are coming from. They've officially locked on to a market almost completely different from that of the 360/PS3. Nintendo titles aren't kids games per se, but they aren't all M rated titles with gunhappy heroes and graphic depictions of violence either, and that immediately makes them the only option for parents with kids ages 7-13.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By Polynikes on 11/19/2007 10:26:28 PM , Rating: 2

I disagree. I haven't EVER bought a Nintendo console (though my parents bought me one in 198x when I was only a few years old, and back then I had 3 games. Super Mario, Duck Hunt, and the Olympic games thing with the floor pad (they were all on the same cartridge and came with the NES I think.) Anyways, I'm no Nintendo fan, I've been a PlayStation guy.

That said, when I tried the Wii, I thought it was absolutely awesome. (I'm getting one for Christmas, whoo hoo!) The "simulation" may not be that good, but how the hell else can you play Tennis or Ping Pong and have it actually be fun? You can't possibly tell me that doing it with a Wiimote is LESS fun than with a gamepad. No way. Same goes for baseball and bowling. It's just a completely different, more immersive experience. I'm sure they could make more "hardcore" or realistic simulations of these sports if they wanted to, but Wii Sports is pretty fun as is.

The beauty of the Wiimote is it's different. It's not trying to replace the gamepad, it just offers a different way to interact with a game. Let me guess, you thought joysticks were just a gimmick, too, huh?

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RE: The Real Shortage

By BansheeX on 11/20/07, Rating: -1

By BansheeX on 11/20/2007 2:22:52 AM , Rating: -1

Lots of sports games there, but you fail to mention Soccer. What are you going to do for that, attach it to your leg? You shouldn't just rate something down without addressing some of the points I've made. The Wiimote is limited to certain genres, period. Explain to me how the Wiimote or a PC mouse would function in a fighting game with fast and multiple leg and arm attacks. I will honestly say that I have played Wii bowling, and I find the Monkey Bowling mini-game in Super Monkey Ball more fun because it made it more puzzle-like by having moving lanes and different strengths for each character. It took a fairly monotonous game and added some new ideas, which are more effective to me than simply changing a button press to a hand-motion. The wiimote was kind of fun when I was drunk, but it's not groundbreakingly immersive to me since I've swung a real baseball and bowled a real bowling ball and swung a real tennis racket. These things are so much more challenging and complex in real life that simply flailing my arm and succeeding instead of tapping a button and succeeding doesn't really increase my sense of immersion very much at all.

I'm not going to praise the Wiimote with the thinking that it's good simply because it's different, because you could say the same thing about the Virtual Boy and Power Glove (which were different, but terrible). It's a far better effort, but I've seen the limitations of it and I think Nintendo could have explored better plots for its franchises before introducing such a device.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By Gnoad on 11/20/2007 6:33:50 AM , Rating: 2

As for soccer, look at Mario Strikers. It's not soccer, but its a similar concept, and the controls work beautifully.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By BansheeX on 11/21/2007 2:05:28 AM , Rating: 1

Nice thorough explanation of how the wiimote revolutionizes or even works in all of those aforementioned genres guys. You're awfully good at clicking ratedowns though, I'll give you that.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By Circle T on 11/19/2007 6:05:03 PM , Rating: 2

I'm sure Nintendo thanks you for your comments, and would now like you to step aside so someone can purchase another.

You can call it a gimmick. You can say the graphics are terrible. You can complain of lag and little precision. That is your opinion, and you are totally entitled to it. I will kindly disagree, and go back to having an absolute blast playing Galaxy.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By BioRebel on 11/19/2007 6:12:32 PM , Rating: 3

Yea, I mean its not like the Wii has 2 games for it that could potentially win game of the year. Nor are the graphics from said games compared to games on higher end systems that are supposed to be 'more powerful'.

Besides, a controller that makes you do nothing but twidle your thumbs is FAR more intuitive, innovative, and realistic than a motion sensing controller.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By Chocolate Pi on 11/19/2007 6:54:16 PM , Rating: 2

Trolling a video game platform? On the Internet? That's nice, but I have to get back to playing Galaxy and checking my Nintendo stock holdings. (Hard to say which is making me happier...)

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RE: The Real Shortage

By inperfectdarkness on 11/20/2007 10:27:52 AM , Rating: 2

sadly, my roth fund cannot buy nintendo stock. (i'm nearly committing seppuku right now. if they're making $100 of every console x 500,000 u.s. console sales/month = OH SNAP!)

if graphics are everything, then the psp should also be outselling the ds....oh wait, it's not.

you see kids, there's plenty of "gold" from previous consoles that's still around to be played. and every week, the wii allows us to download some of those gems for the virtua console. even with 8-bit graphics, the original legend of zelda is still a great game. that's why the best rpg's of the past 10 years have all been released for GBA...imho. (ff1,2,4,5,6,golden sun, etc) you only need bombastic graphics if you're trying to disguise a turd.

the gcn could not simply be "updated" to a wii. and as previously stated, it still has a gba player...so it's going to stick around indefinately in my living room. it would also require wi-fi, a hard drive, and a host of other features. plus, we now have higher capacity disks.

i'll tell you from experience, i wasn't too keen on the control stick back in 1995. nintendo knows what they're doing. i was equally worried about the wiimote. nintendo still knows what they're doing. just because it's new to the market doesn't make it irrevelant. and just because sony and microsoft get their hands on the idea doesn't mean they'll make quality. i've yet to see even one instance where sony and microsoft combined can have a better gaming execution than 99% of the 1st party games nintendo releases. unlike nintendo, sony and microsoft usually farm out their 1st party games. to be fair, nintendo does this on a few of their titles too...but the best ones, the blockbusters, are almost exclusively in-house.

i can virtually guarantee that if the 360 was selling for $250, and the wii was still at $250, the wii would still outsell the 360. haters who think the price should drop are loony.

naysay all you want, at this rate, the wii will become the fastest, best selling, most successful console platform yet. (i say yet, because this leaves the door open for more huge success to follow).

the wii was never intended to best pc fps gaming. just appreciate that it does what it does extremely well...so well in fact; that it makes both of its competitors look stupid.

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RE: The Real Shortage

By BMFPitt on 11/20/2007 3:33:02 PM , Rating: 2