Wall Street Journal on the Wii Shortage

Dec. 10 11:33 PM by Lynxara

There are many articles about what I'm just shy of calling The Great Wii Shortage of 2007, and most of them are pretty lousy. Occasion there's a good one, and I feel obligated to link it. This piece by the Wall Street Journal takes a look at how the Wii shortage ended up happening, and features some interesting highbrow discussion of Nintendo's business practices. It also features some factoids sure to rile up fans interested in the Console Wars...

The frustration of U.S. shoppers could become a problem for Nintendo as it seeks to keep up the momentum of a business that has surpassed expectations. Nintendo has twice revised its forecast for the number of Wii consoles it expects to sell in its fiscal year ending March 2008, now predicting sales of 17.5 million units, compared with a forecast of 14 million at the beginning of the year. On a global basis, the Wii, which lets users play games like tennis and bowling intuitively by swinging a controller, has outsold its two direct rivals, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.