What's up with Wii?

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:47 am

Does anyone know what's going on with the shortage of Wii systems? My daughter's been wanting to buy one with her Christmas money, but here we are, with Lent looming ahead, and you still can't find a Wii in any of the stores. Best Buy says they never know from day to day if they're going to have any in or not. Gamestop had several Wii boxes on display, with prices on them, but alas, they were empty...they haven't had Wiis since before Christmas. I can understand when a popular toy is hard to get at Christmastime, but more than a month later? That just doesn't make any sense. It's like shopping in Communist Russia!

Redwolf

BillChin · Post by **BillChin** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 1:29 am

Nintendo is selling all the Wii's they can manufacture. They doubled production for 2007 and still are selling out. The word of mouth is strong advertising. The basic sports game package will entertain most groups of kids for many, many hours.

Techbargains.com has a find a Wii search.
http://www.techbargains.com/buywii.htm

Right now it is showing Gamestop, ToysRus with Wii's available, Walmart, Circuit City, BestBuy, and Buy.com out of stock. This availability is for online ordering, and might change by the time you check it again, because they sell almost as quickly as they come in.

Most of the chains will deliver to local stores for free pickup. Good luck. If you are willing to order online and keep checking, it shouldn't be too hard to get one on Super Bowl Sunday.

/edit to add: I checked the follow links to Gamestop and their delivery date is 2/15 and you have to buy a $450 bundle. Couldn't find the item on ToysRus. Again, good luck. Seems like it wouldn't be that hard, but maybe a lot of folks had the same idea to buy with their Christmas money.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:10 am

I got one for my kid's bday last early Spring. Lucky find. I stepped into the EB Games next to Whole Foods Market, just on a whim, one Monday morning, and they had 5. 2 more people bought them right then.

It's a matter of luck still, but worth checking your local stores if you pass one.

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 8:45 pm

Grammar lesson #1:

"What's up with uus?"

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:42 pm

BillChin wrote:Nintendo is selling all the Wii's they can manufacture. They doubled production for 2007 and still are selling out. The word of mouth is strong advertising. The basic sports game package will entertain most groups of kids for many, many hours.

Techbargains.com has a find a Wii search.
http://www.techbargains.com/buywii.htm

Right now it is showing Gamestop, ToysRus with Wii's available, Walmart, Circuit City, BestBuy, and Buy.com out of stock. This availability is for online ordering, and might change by the time you check it again, because they sell almost as quickly as they come in.

Most of the chains will deliver to local stores for free pickup. Good luck. If you are willing to order online and keep checking, it shouldn't be too hard to get one on Super Bowl Sunday.

/edit to add: I checked the follow links to Gamestop and their delivery date is 2/15 and you have to buy a $450 bundle. Couldn't find the item on ToysRus. Again, good luck. Seems like it wouldn't be that hard, but maybe a lot of folks had the same idea to buy with their Christmas money.

Well, we can't afford a $450 bundle. Kid got $250 for Christmas, which, before taxes, is the base price for the system...that's all we can afford. I have a hard time believing this isn't an engineered shortage, to be honest. These things have been out for ages.

Redwolf

BillChin · Post by **BillChin** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 11:41 pm

Keep checking, it only takes a few clicks to check, if a person has high speed Internet. One will come available soon enough. The kids have waited this long.

Some stores will call a person when units come in, or let them pre-order for next available. Some stores won't. There was a big shortage of Wii's for this past Christmas. A lot of the stores issued rainchecks for delivery early in 2008. That is another reason for the lack of availability now.

Ebay might be another drain. If flippers can sell their units on the bay for a profit, they will buy as soon as they appear in stores.

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:40 am

Redwolf wrote:I have a hard time believing this isn't an engineered shortage, to be honest. These things have been out for ages.

Seriously, it's not engineered. Unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo make a profit on every one sold. So why wouldn't Nintendo want to sell as many as it possibly can? Since it was released over a year ago it's been hard to get, not just at christmas times and this is the case here in Europe as well.

beowulf573 · Post by **beowulf573** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:27 am

I've played with a Wii in the office and at friend's and understand the excitement. It's really fun to play. However, I don't need to spend more time in front of the TV so I've resisted buying any game console.

However, after seeing this guys projects I may buy one of the controllers to play with:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Very cool stuff.

springrobin · Post by **springrobin** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:06 am

My son and my husband agreed to a shared Christmas present of a WII. This was in October. My son called frequently until a local BestBuy had them in November. I called the one close to where I work and was able to score their last one (maybe 20 minutes after the store opened- but I had to go into the store- they wouldn't hold it. According to a Target employee I talked to, you do have to ask because they won't have them in the case. They don't come in regular shipments from a warehouse like some products would but by FedEx. If there is an ad coming out, the store has to hold a certain number until whatever day the ad specifies but sometimes the employees will tell you when the ad will be coming out.

mukade · Post by **mukade** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:06 am

I have a Wii. There is a shortage in Japan, too.

I know someone who was on the Wii development team and they said that the Wii's popularity has taken even Nintendo by surprise.

Mukade

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:41 am

I don't think it's an engineered shortage.

This is the first time in 16 years that Nintendo has been at the top of the console gaming market. When you habitually come in 3rd place, you gear your manufacturing levels for the demand you expect.

There's a big difference between being the market leader and the 3rd or 4th place guy in how many millions of machines you need to be producing. You don't make 20 million game consoles when you only expect to sell 4 or 5 million worldwide. (these are real-world type numbers...)

I asked my 7 year old son what he wants for Christmas NEXT year. I was expecting him to say some video games, or some of the other things he's been playing with or watching on tv. He thought about 15 seconds and said "a wii!" These things are just popular.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3162770

I'm sure it'll just take them a while to get production to meet demand.

jkwest · Post by **jkwest** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:59 pm

Always look on Sunday mornings...stores usually hold their Wii shipments for the Sunday advert...I'd say about 75% of the big box stores do this...Circuit City, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, KMart, etc.

P.S. GO EARLY!!!!

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:43 pm

This is interesting because I had never considered a Wii before last Saturday.

We had my mom's 70th birthday party at my sisters and ended up playing bowling all day. My mom won most of the games. It was a riot.

We're thinking about getting one now.

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:23 pm

jkwest wrote:Always look on Sunday mornings...stores usually hold their Wii shipments for the Sunday advert...I'd say about 75% of the big box stores do this...Circuit City, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, KMart, etc.

P.S. GO EARLY!!!!

Unfortunately, we're usually (well, always) otherwise occupied on Sunday mornings. I guess she'll just have to wait. Though knowing how these things go, the darned things will probably be obsolete before we can find one.

Redwolf

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:19 pm

Yeah it's not an engineered shortage, Nintendo has actually much more success with it's Wii than it anticipated, and they are also selling the Gameboy like crazy. They did not have the infrastucture to support massive production like the Wii requires. The Wii is not my type of console (I got a PS3) but I'm happy for Nintendo, they always had great products and they deserve this success.