Wii preorders incredibly popular: we strike out
So it'll be hard to get the PS3 and easy to get the Wii, right? Yeah, conventional wisdom rocks. I roll at about 9:00 a.m. since I figure each store will get a decent amount of preorder slots and very few people will be in line.
Context & Ripple Effects
Back in July, CNNMoney reported that Nintendo's Wii might even get an early launch, feeding a fall narrative that Sony's component-constrained PS3 would be the hard-to-find console while the Wii sat on shelves. That assumption just broke at retail: on October 14, reporters arriving at 9:00 a.m. found Wii preorder slots already spoken for, with demand far exceeding what stores could allocate ahead of the November launch.
The significance is positioning, not just logistics. Nintendo spent 2006 pitching the Wii as the accessible console; if its preorders sell out as fast as the PS3's, the two launches converge on the same scarcity dynamic, and Nintendo's supply chain becomes the constraint on its own broader-audience pitch.
First-order effects
- Consumers who planned to walk into a store near launch lose that option weeks in advance — the only remaining path to a guaranteed unit at launch was a preorder slot, and those are gone.
- Retailers holding Wii allocation quotas face the same crowd-control pressure as with the PS3, since the 'easy console' lane no longer absorbs walk-up demand.
Second-order effects
- With both consoles scarce simultaneously, the secondary market gains a Wii business alongside its PS3 one, and launch-night lineups form for Nintendo hardware for the first time this cycle.
- Sony loses the availability contrast as a talking point: the PS3's shortage no longer makes the Wii the default alternative for buyers who just want a new console in November.
Third-order effects
- If Wii demand holds past launch, Nintendo's non-core audience strategy gets tested by manufacturing capacity rather than consumer interest, pushing retailers toward allocation mechanisms beyond simple preorders.
- A sellout on both sides would reframe the 2006 console race as a contest of sustained supply and software cadence rather than a single launch-day scoreboard.
The trend: Console launches are shifting from supply-driven stories defined by one scarce machine to demand contests where Nintendo must prove its expanded audience survives actual retail scarcity.