Nintendo Wii may be scarce for holidays
SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 11 (Reuters) - Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS: Quote, Profile, Research) hit Wii video game consoles will still be scarce this holiday season, a senior executive said on Wednesday. Nintendo promised that some 100 new games for the Wii …
Context & Ripple Effects
Scarcity has defined the Wii since launch: when the console hit Japan in late 2006, Nintendo allocated just 400,000 units for the home market, and seven months later the gap between demand and shipments is still widening — a Japanese publisher reported the Wii outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 six-to-one in June.
The July warning that holiday shelves will again run thin lands alongside an aggressive software push: Nintendo promised some 100 new Wii games, with syndicated pickup around the announcement touching the Balance Board/Wii Fit title and executives claiming the Wii is soon to be No. 1 worldwide. A Level Up report of a downloadable WiiWare service remains unconfirmed.
First-order effects
- Holiday buyers face a second consecutive season of empty shelves, and every unsold week is forgone hardware revenue for Nintendo at peak demand — a shortage by output, not by design on paper.
- Retailers heading into Q4 must plan shelf space around a console they cannot reliably stock, while the 100-game pipeline gives them software margin to sell against scarce units.
Second-order effects
- Sony, already weighing its competitive position after the June six-to-one gap in Japan, faces pressure to respond on price or bundling rather than waiting for Nintendo's supply to catch up.
- Persistent scarcity pushes third-party publishers toward the DS-side playbook Nintendo is extending — camera accessories, Face Training, eye-training titles — where content ships regardless of console supply.
Third-order effects
- If shortages persist into a second holiday season, 'hard to find' risks becoming part of the Wii's brand identity, converting a manufacturing constraint into durable marketing leverage over rivals.
- An industry where the fastest-selling console cannot meet demand shifts bargaining power toward whoever controls shelf allocation — and makes downloadable distribution like the rumored WiiWare a structural hedge against boxed-supply bottlenecks.
The trend: Console competition is shifting from spec sheets to supply chains, with Nintendo's demand exceeding capacity turning scarcity itself into a competitive weapon.