Wii Shortage Deliberate Says Gamestop

[luv_mist]

I don't really like Gamestop. I know that it's not really liked on this site all the much for their homo practices. Just got this in my email. Interesting.

Wii Shortage Deliberate

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by luv_mist

I don't really like Gamestop. I know that it's not really liked on this site all the much for their homo practices. Just got this in my email. Interesting. Wii Shortage Deliberate

The link isn't working for me.

[bkfount]

it's not hard to believe, especially when you haven't seen one in a store ever. There's no way the demand is the sole cause behind that. It's nice that's it's selling so well, but for a souped up gamecube, they should be pretty easy to manufacture.

[JRod]

Don't think it's Gamestop's fault. Isn't Nintendo holding back units to meet their quota for launch. Starting next fiscal cycle is when they'll release the flood gates.

[luv_mist]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mark Whiting, 03/27/2007

It's the first rule of economics: carcity = value. That's why it's hardly a surprise to hear R. Richard Fontaine, CEO of GameStop, saying that his company's profits may be about to ride the crest of "a cycle on steroids." Why? Because Fontaine believes Nintendo is about to release the floodgates on the lamentable Wii supply drought -- a drought which GameStop feels may be the result of a cannily played Nintendo supply-and-demand strategy. Gamasutra has an article up at the moment in which a few statements made by Fontaine and other GameStop executives are quoted, directly following an investor-level financial reports conference. GameStop's COO Dan DeMatteo also made the following statement to the press: "I believe that next week we get our first allocations of Wii and DSs and we are quite pleased with those numbers. We were concerned about the dryness here in March, but it looks like April is going to be good. [...] I don't think [more shortages] are going to be an issue...and this just my opinion, but I think [Nintendo] intentionally dried up supply because they made their numbers for the year. The new year starts April 1, and I think we're going to see supply flowing." Fontaine also had some comments about the company's opinion of the recent worldwide Playstation 3 launch. "[It] was a very good launch" he said "falling somewhat short of what they [Sony] would determine to be a great launch." He also spoke briefly on the subject of whether we'll see a price cut for PS2s at GameStop any time soon. "[W]e have no knowledge from Sony that there will be a price cut, however if sales slowed they probably have enough profit in that unit that they could reduce it to that $99. [...] However, as a matter of fact, given the way that they are selling, I would suspect that they would not cut the price at this point."

This is the article.

[The Chef]

The shortage is getting old, to the point where I no longer am dying to get my hands on the system in the first place. I was at a local Fry's the other day and they had controllers in stock, amazingly enough, and then I noticed they were imports since the packaging was much thinner and all the language on the packaging was in Chinese I believe, to add salt to the wound, the regular controller was selling for 59.99 and that didnt include the nunchuck, I guess when they have to import them the buck gets passed on to the consumer.

[Dondadda]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pimping219

The shortage is getting old, to the point where I no longer am dying to get my hands on the system in the first place. I was at a local Fry's the other day and they had controllers in stock, amazingly enough, and then I noticed they were imports since the packaging was much thinner and all the language on the packaging was in Chinese I believe, to add salt to the wound, the regular controller was selling for 59.99 and that didnt include the nunchuck, I guess when they have to import them the buck gets passed on to the consumer.

That's silly, since Wii Play is $50 and comes with a Wiimote. Just have some patience (or get it used on ebay), and everything should be easy to get in a few weeks.

[countryboy]

I don't see how it could be Gamestop's fault. Especially when 3rd party vendors are being put on a waiting list to get development kits.