ru kidding me, what is going on??? i want a wii for christmas!!!

Have the people over at Gizmodo ever been right about anything, though?

Not very often.

I don't think they'll ever catch up to demand.

Its still very popular here by me. No matter how many wiis the stores get in they sell out within a couple of hours.

Nintendo isn't the only company to do this very thing, Sony (Playstations), Microsoft (X-Box's). Every year at the holiday season, they say "Hey, let's make it hard for these kids to get the toys they want." And by kids, I of course mean, the kid in us all who likes games. It all comes down to creating hype and playing hard to get.

It seems surreal that the Wii production still wouldn't meet demand when it's been this long since the release. Obviously, Nintendo is conspiring against us.

We got one the morning it came out!! NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAAAAAAH.

Not sure what the big deal is.. I don't think the Nintendo fat cats are sitting behind their desk cackling over the fact demand is still steady for their console. It's not too long ago They were a distant 3rd in the console market (not to say they have ever suffered in the handheld realm since the GB came out) and people had written them off. Why over produce when you can keep the Wii moving off the shelves while preventing an oversaturation of the market.

So... no lead-filled goodies for the little guys, and no Wii for the big kids. It's gonna be a lean Christmas.

The Wii is awesome - a true revolution in both gaming and entertainment. There is little wonder that demand outstrips supply. I have one and understand why the market wants them. At $250 compared to over $500, with a superior game interface, there is little question in my mind why they are winning. I would have thought that Nintendo would be meeting demand by now, but why would you over-do it? Honda got (and maybe still does) full retail price for many of its cars, even with a 2-3 month wait. But, I would have to guess that Nintendo isn't making much money on the console- the games are where the money is, so why hold back production?

@marsneedsrabbits: I had a good laugh reading that! Either that or it'll be an overpriced Christmas, yet again!

I love mine...got it last year when it came out. :) They are still sold out in this area pretty much though...it's ridiculous!

The supposed 400 dollar PS3 (the price it should have started at) might get a few extra sales because of this. But I think more people will end up going to the 50-dollars-cheaper-and-with-more-games Xbox 360.

What I find really funny about this is that Nintendo is not meeting demand...while selling almost as many consoles as their competitors combined. Over 3 times as many as Sony is selling.

Is this really any surprise, video game consoles are ALWAYS hard to get during the holidays, and with talk of people hoarding the Wii's since spring and summer for holiday ebay sales, this should come as no surprise.

Its going to be an ebay christmas once again!

If you really want one, or want to get one for the holidays you have to start looking NOW, while it is still somewhat easy! I regret not being able to pre-order a Wii when it first came out. It resulted in me having to call around for weeks and lining up outside stores at 5AM. Indeed, this console can be quite elusive, and the demand for it remains consistently huge. Good luck to all who want to find one.

Also, expect shortages of Wii Remotes and various controller attachments so you might want to pick up a few while you still can!

It took me over a month just to find a store with the wiimote charger base in stock. Maybe preordering super smash bros. isn't such a bad idea...

I don't understand why Nintendo is still having shortages of the Wii. They're shooting themselves in the foot by doing this. When they first came out, I wasn't all that interested in them... played one about a month after they came out and was very interested in buying one. After searching for a few months, I've lost interest in the system. I've found other things to spend my money on. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Nintendo is smart about it's marketing.
If everyone got a Wii on day one, everyone would get bored of it by 6 months, and stop looking for new games entirely before the year is up.

By scattering the initial deployment across the demographic they are able to pull more "new game purchases" in later in the year, and cause word of mouth 'wow this game is fun' advertising which causes the already bored people to pick up a new game of which they would ordinarily overlook.

Either that or the damn thing is the tits and what is the point of ramping up production if everyone will buy one eventually anyway.

What is this, the Soviet Union? They can raise their prices $25-50, curb demand a bit to meet it, make a little more money, and everyone's happy.

A relatively informal survey of eBay auctions seems to indicate that there's not a giant shortage, however. It appears as if the markup on the console itself isn't huge -- only about $50 at most, with most looking to be around $20 to $30 over the MSRP.

In other words: While lots of people still don't have one, the ones who were desperate for one already got one. Either that, or people are feeling too poor to buy these off of eBay.

If you're willing to hit a few stores every few days, you will find a Wii. I managed to pick one up on the fourth store I went to in two days, and basically found one at 8 PM at night in a Wal-Mart.

Best purchase I ever made. I will be taking the advice of the above poster and getting my classic controller now before the holidays hit.

Someone come to China please. No shortage of them over here.

This is nuts. My dad walked into Best Buy and asked if they had any Wiis, and they asked him how many he wanted. And this isn't the middle of nowhere, we're right outside of New York City. Maybe Nintendo needs to spread out the availability a bit, because every time we've gone into the Best Buys around here in the last few months, they've all had Wiis. The Gamestops don't, though. They get one or two every few weeks.

nintendo back to its usual games. i'd care except i fully expect them to delay smash bros. to next year. god forbid they release two big games (that & galaxy) within the 4th quarter.

@vitonfluorcarbon: nintendo only makes a few bucks off consoles, but since they have a real hard time producing a steady supply of games, most of their money comes from hardware - that's why they're so excited about the different attachments for the wiimote.

your numbers are skewed a little - a 360 core currently sells for only $30 more than the wii, so "...at $250 to over $500..." is an invalid argument. if we really want to compare, let's talk apples & apples:

wii, extra wiimote & 1 game: ~$350
xbox core, extra wifi controller & 1 game: ~$390
ps3 (60gb), extra controller & 1 game: ~$610

the difference between nintendo & microsoft is only $40.

sony is out of their freakin skull with their price point, but with winners like lair out there, it's a wonder there's so many still on the shelf!