Wired Knows Why You Can't Find a Wii

Nov. 29 12:24 PM by Lynxara

Just about every small-town newspaper in America is running some lousy gee-whiz story about how you can't find a Wii. These stories are so utterly bland and identical in their lousiness that there was a brief brouhaha when one gaming site became convinced Nintendo had to be planting them in the media, and Nintendo was pretty upset at the allegation. (I just assumed the stories were bland and identical because most small-town newspaper reporting is pretty awful.)

Chris Kohler is about as far from lousy as you get when it comes to writing about games, so he did some actual legwork in this excellent Wired feature article about the Great Wii Shortage of 2007. It's all an excellent read, but here are some bullet-point quotes to whet your appetite.

  • "I've never seen anything like this," says Michael Pachter, a videogame industry analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, about the overwhelming demand for Wiis. "Nintendo could not have expected this level of popularity."
  • Demand for Wii is so high, says analyst Pachter, because of all the different types of consumers competing for the units.
  • But it's not just kids who crave Wii. Grown-ups also want to get their hands on the console, which uses a motion-sensing controller to make gameplay much more realistic than standard joysticks, so they can play Wii's tennis and bowling games. (The latter is an especially big hit at retirement homes.)

Wii Sports Gallery

Comments

WE ALL KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN

 

I can tell you, as retail arrow-fodder at a certain large chain electronics store, that customers can have all kinds of emotions when it comes to the elusive Wii they covet. I've had quite a few customers walk up to me and just wordlessly hold their hands up as if to say "...well?!" and I would just tell them "Nope, the Wii's not in stock, we're expecting them at so and so time."

Although I am nice to a fault to all kinds of customers (this place compensates me enough to where I'm not all "BLARGH CUSTOMERS"), the only ones I will lose patience with are the (usually older) ones that accuse Nintendo of doing all of this on purpose to irritate people. Then I break out the sarcasm.

Probably the most ridiculous customers I've seen are the ones who are wondering if the price is going to drop on the Wii any time soon. I almost always answer "Dude/Lady, Nintendo could double the price of the Wii and it would sell just as well, if you don't believe me, check eBay."

 

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