Nintendo comments on Wii shortage

Never before has a console been sold out of stores as the Nintendo Wii. In fact, it has sold so well, it almost has sold as many total units as the Xbox 360, who had a one-year jump over Sony and Nintendo. Today, Nintendo at last decided to comment on the shortage. Lately, there has been speculation that Nintendo has been holding back units so their stats look better at the end of the first financial quarter of the year, but now we have found this is not the case.

Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo's current VP was recently quoted saying:

"There is a lot going on behind the scenes in terms of working on what we are producing, and the numbers continue to rise, but the product is so very popular that we may see a supply / demand situation last for some time. We are at absolute maximum production and doing everything we can. The number of units that we have been able to produce has far exceeded our hardware production in the past - and the production levels of a lot of our competitors - but demand continues to be really high. People are being really diligent about working with retailers to locate one, but we are cognizant of the fact that a lot of fans are not able to get their hands on one yet. We are asking them to be patient and to know that we are working on this as fast as we can."

So, because of there being such high demand, anyone waiting for a price drop shouldn't be holding their breath. In fact, later in the same interview Kaplan went onto say:

"There was definitely that (higher price) possibility. There are so many people who are very much liking the system, and while the price that it's at is very much mass market we probably could have folded at a higher price. But I think that it was always Nintendo's intent to make it a product that is appealing to the mass market."

So, that pretty much crushed my prediction at an April price drop, but this is one of the few times I'm this off at a prediction. In fact.... you know what, I'm gonna save that next thought for episode 21 of GamersCast. And trust me, your gonna like what I was about to say!