AP RedNintendo Wii: Why I'll be the cool uncle and your kids will hate you this year too
October 17th 2008 21:57
Okay, hate is a strong word. But the kiddies will probably cry or have that look like they were sucking on a sour gumball. And I'm probably beating a dead horse here, but I'm just posting based on what I"ve seen the last month so I don't care.
Its two years after launch and I don't see any Wii consoles on the store shelves here in the US. Over the course of the last month, been to various spots in NYC, Northern-Central-Southern NJ, and Pennsylvania and have seen the console available in exactly 2 stores. And one of those stores was the Nintendo World in NYC which is supposed to always have them.
Now, seeing as I venture into NYC on a regular basis, getting a Wii or even multiple Wiis is no problem for me at all. But this is the metro area where I can get diamonds cheap, Razor 2s were plentiful last X-mas, as well as various incarnations of TMX Elmo being in tons of stores. I can only imagine what supply will be like come Christmas time in other areas.
So if the console has been popular for the last 2 years, why is it still short in supply in the US?
Its very simple really. Since demand is high worldwide and the likelyhood of selling a unit in the US is the same as selling the same unit in Switzerland or the UK, Nintendo would rather send more units to Europe or wherever (Proportionately speaking).
Say you have 8 pizza pies and you have to serve 4 sides of a restaurant. A baseball team comes in on the left w/30 players and coaches. A family of 6 come in and sit on the North Side. A group of 15 from Wall Street sit on the right. And a group of random people sit at the counter.
The randoms being just seated at the counter get their individual slices and that adds up to a pie. 7 Left. The family orders 2 pies. The team orders 6 pies. Wall Streeters order 5 pies also. To be fair, the family gets 1, the team gets 3 and wall street gets 3 and they have to wait till the kitchen makes more pies. Does it matter that their order is more? Does it matter that they have more people wanting to pay for food?
Nintendo probably does have more of an ulterior motive than my rather long proverb. If you can sell the unit for $250 USD here but sell it in Europe for $70-$100 USD higher, why not?
The real reason your kids will hate you isn't the high demand or Nintendo greed but the US economy. If the dollar were stronger than the Euro, you would probably see more units proportional to population here in the US. Nintendo wants to make more money per unit and isn't going to make any extra effort to produce more to meet demand. Not a bad business strategy, but bad for the US consumer whose need in relation to demand still hasn't hit an equilibrium.
Personally, I think its a mistake to not saturate the US market as much as you can. Its where you have the most consumers, bad economy or no. The kiddie set has a need and they are generally met by their parents.
The bigger mistake may be not having enough supply for the world in general. The way the titles have been selling, more units should be out there to capitalize on the trend.
The titles that have been selling for the Wii are mostly first party titles. Selling more Wiis = selling more games made by Nintendo = making more money per unit on the discs that cost you very little per unit. Selling more Wiis in the US means selling more games which should be where you make your money not only now but in the long term because of the consumer base. I think its very short sighted and if/when the 360 or PS3 dominate this market, Nintendo will look stupid for not filling (or trying to fill) that high demand and creating some brand loyalty. Do I spend another $250 for a PS3 cuz game XYZ looks cool or do I stick with the Wii? Well, already got 12 games for this thing so I'll stick around and buy another 6-10 titles until the PS3/360 come down in price. People won't even get to that point.
Now go out and reserve your overloaded Wii bundles to make your kids happy. Or go to Toys R Us, Best Buy, and Target early Sunday mornings when they put out product to meet supply/sales that were in their respective weekend fliers and pray.
That or have your kids hate you.
Its two years after launch and I don't see any Wii consoles on the store shelves here in the US. Over the course of the last month, been to various spots in NYC, Northern-Central-Southern NJ, and Pennsylvania and have seen the console available in exactly 2 stores. And one of those stores was the Nintendo World in NYC which is supposed to always have them.
Now, seeing as I venture into NYC on a regular basis, getting a Wii or even multiple Wiis is no problem for me at all. But this is the metro area where I can get diamonds cheap, Razor 2s were plentiful last X-mas, as well as various incarnations of TMX Elmo being in tons of stores. I can only imagine what supply will be like come Christmas time in other areas.
So if the console has been popular for the last 2 years, why is it still short in supply in the US?
Its very simple really. Since demand is high worldwide and the likelyhood of selling a unit in the US is the same as selling the same unit in Switzerland or the UK, Nintendo would rather send more units to Europe or wherever (Proportionately speaking).
Say you have 8 pizza pies and you have to serve 4 sides of a restaurant. A baseball team comes in on the left w/30 players and coaches. A family of 6 come in and sit on the North Side. A group of 15 from Wall Street sit on the right. And a group of random people sit at the counter.
The randoms being just seated at the counter get their individual slices and that adds up to a pie. 7 Left. The family orders 2 pies. The team orders 6 pies. Wall Streeters order 5 pies also. To be fair, the family gets 1, the team gets 3 and wall street gets 3 and they have to wait till the kitchen makes more pies. Does it matter that their order is more? Does it matter that they have more people wanting to pay for food?
Nintendo probably does have more of an ulterior motive than my rather long proverb. If you can sell the unit for $250 USD here but sell it in Europe for $70-$100 USD higher, why not?
The real reason your kids will hate you isn't the high demand or Nintendo greed but the US economy. If the dollar were stronger than the Euro, you would probably see more units proportional to population here in the US. Nintendo wants to make more money per unit and isn't going to make any extra effort to produce more to meet demand. Not a bad business strategy, but bad for the US consumer whose need in relation to demand still hasn't hit an equilibrium.
Personally, I think its a mistake to not saturate the US market as much as you can. Its where you have the most consumers, bad economy or no. The kiddie set has a need and they are generally met by their parents.
The bigger mistake may be not having enough supply for the world in general. The way the titles have been selling, more units should be out there to capitalize on the trend.
The titles that have been selling for the Wii are mostly first party titles. Selling more Wiis = selling more games made by Nintendo = making more money per unit on the discs that cost you very little per unit. Selling more Wiis in the US means selling more games which should be where you make your money not only now but in the long term because of the consumer base. I think its very short sighted and if/when the 360 or PS3 dominate this market, Nintendo will look stupid for not filling (or trying to fill) that high demand and creating some brand loyalty. Do I spend another $250 for a PS3 cuz game XYZ looks cool or do I stick with the Wii? Well, already got 12 games for this thing so I'll stick around and buy another 6-10 titles until the PS3/360 come down in price. People won't even get to that point.
Now go out and reserve your overloaded Wii bundles to make your kids happy. Or go to Toys R Us, Best Buy, and Target early Sunday mornings when they put out product to meet supply/sales that were in their respective weekend fliers and pray.
That or have your kids hate you.
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