Reggie On Wii Scarcity: PR Game or Genuine Demand?
Ah Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo President and resident Wii spokes person, how we love you. As we trudge through the holiday season, desperately spending our hard earned moneys on wiz-bang crap for our friends and family, we are bombarded with news and pandering for various systems. Last year we were knee deep in PS3s and everyone was scrambling for a Nintendo Wii. I covet my Wii, having waited in line for 26 hours at launch for one alone with an old college buddy. More than a year has passed since then, and it is still a bit of a challenge to find a Wii in certain places.
Nintendo has been pretty comfortable telling everyone that the Wii will be in short supply this holiday season. Many people have been speculating that the shortage is intentional, a marketing attempt to drive up demand (see: Tickle Me Elmo, Furby, and various other 'Why did I buy you that' gift ideas). Reggie gave us a few words on the shortage.
At this point we are literally trying to catch up with demand,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.
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,
Touché Reggie. It only makes sense to make the system as accessible as possible for people. It's been a year, and anyone who would fall for this tactic probably already has. It is funny to think that the supply has been dried up for this long. Either way, keep your eyes on eBay people, there are a lot of unsold Wiis out there, they are just pooling in other cities.
Fils-Aime admits Wii shortages are a "missed opportunity" [GamesIndustry.biz]
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 28 November 2007
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: nintendo, reggie, shortage, shortages, wii
Yeah, what a bunch of crap.
I go into a Sam's Club every now and then to use the private liquor store. (I don't shop there or have a membership. Boo Wal-Mart. But Colorado law says you have to let people in to use the privately owned liquor store.)
Every time I look through their video game selection. I have never ever seen a Wii console for sale, though they sell the games for Wii. One day I was walking by their cabinet where they store all their video game consoles. They were doing inventory. There were 2 Wii consoles tucked away in there. I looked out on the floor and no Wii console was advertised for sale. What's the deal with that?
It's funny, the K-Mart in my little southern town has had a wii for months. I recently looked on findawii, and it seems they just recieved another one, reporting as having a resounding (when speaking about Wiis anyway) two. Damn you poverty!
Nukie, how does what your Sam's Club does with Wii's have anything to do with what Nintendo is doing with theirs?
Reggie's not telling you crap, as far as I can tell, unless he somehow runs Sam's Club as well.
Anyone who thinks Nintendo would purposely hold back consoles is crazy and clearly doesn't understand how economics work. They don't need to create a demand for the Wii becuase it's clearly already there. Also, consoles aren't like baseball cards where the price goes up due to rarity. eBay scalpers gets to charge more, but it isn't as if Nintendo sees any of that additional money. If it was up to them, everyone who wanted a Wii would be able to march into a store and buy one without any trouble because any time someone gets turned away, it's money that they're missing both on the console and the software so why would they willingly do that?
As a fellow Coloradan, I can tell you that Wiis have been very scarce in the city of Denver. For months I checked once a week at all the game stores, best buy, Target, Walmart, etc. One day I just lucked out and was at Target to get cat food and there happened to be one on the shelf which I immediately grabbed. Haven't seen another one anywhere since.
As for the ones Nukie saw tucked away at Sam's, they could have been damaged and returned, or maybe the manager is not aware that they are sold out on the floor and that the item is in high demand(this is Sam's club after all, game/electronics are not its main priority). If they have them in the store, then they have already been invoiced for the product by Nintendo, and it is Sam's club that is losing potential sales by not having them out.