« Snow: Friend or Enemy? | Home | $#^! Happens, and the Lepolt’s Buy a Wii »
This is Getting to be a Wii bit Ridiculous
By Jonathan | January 28, 2008 at 8:24 pm
If you have been doing any shopping this holiday season, or even care even a little bit about video games, you probably have noticed that the Nintendo Wii is a big ticket item. The console itself sells for a retail price of $249.99. Checking out the latest eBay bids looks like people are willing to pay about $325 plus shipping for the item. People have been waiting outside gaming stores hours before the store opens, just waiting for that UPS truck to show up with hopes that the driver will have some nifty white packages to handoff. I talked to a guy at GameStop the other day and he said that the people waiting in line were informed that there would be no Wii’s arriving on that day…yet people still waited around for the delivery just to make sure.
Now that’s getting ridiculous.
So what’s the deal anyways? Why the short supply? First of all, were you able to predict this incredible demand this Christmas? I sure had no idea, and I’m pretty sure Nintendo didn’t either. Abi pointed out to this article to me that was originally published in the Wall Street Journal. It discusses Nintendo as a company and why there aren’t any Wii’s this year. I’ll let you read the article for yourself, but one of the main reasons is that they are a rather conservative company when they set their earnings forecasts. In the past two years they have met the forecasts in just nine months.
It kinda comes down to the “dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t” scenario, where if Nintendo floods the market with the systems and then they don’t sell, the retailers get pissed because no one wants them and they have to lower the prices, and then Nintendo loses money, and blah blah blah, dust off your copy of Economics for Dummies if you don’t get it. However, the consumers are happy with this scenario because they can walk into Best Buy, pick up a Wii, and take it home to play right away. With things as they are now, Nintendo is happy because they can keep their inventory low and keep that cash flow flowin’. I’m not sure how the retailers feel about people camping outside of their stores and waiting in line before the doors open..and I know that consumers are pissed because they can’t buy a damn Wii for a reasonable price.
Sometimes this is just the way things go.
But anyways, I always find it interesting to see what the craze of the holiday season will be each year…it looks like the Wii wins two years in a row. Does anyone remember the days of Furbies, Beanie Babies and Tickle Me Elmo?
Topics: Wii, video games | No Comments »