Our local Target seems to always have them in stock. Maybe try finding a Target store with minimal traffic.

They're only driving the Ebay sellers who are grabbing up every one they can get their hands on just to flip

I used an online Wii finder, and scored one on June at Target. Best bet is likely middle of the week in the early afternoon.

In defense of Nintendo and manufacturing companies in general, I used to work for a big electronics company and have a little story.
The marketers thought we would sell 200,000 widgets based on early market research so we geared up production and lined up supplies for 200,000.
The marketers showed early prototypes to some customers who got very excited. The marketers come back and tell us to gear up for 400,000. It is incredibly expensive to double production on short notice but we did it.
We wound up selling 300,000 at regular price and having a fire sale for the last 100,000.
So our unit cost went up and our average selling price went down. Instead of a good successful product selling 200,000 units we had a money loser at 400,000 units. I understand exactly where Nintendo is coming from.

consolewatch.com got me a wii and GH3

i found my Wii via [www.itrackr.com] ... they somehow track Gamestop inventory as well as the big box stores ... since i'm not 12 years old i had no idea about GameStop but sure enough, itracker's info was accurate and i got found one exactly where they said it was ... and i've never seen a Wii console out on display at a target or any other store so i'd probably still be looking

that being said ... the Wii novelty has kind of worn off already but it can be a fun, family game night type of console ...

I'm not seeing this though. I really don't think Nintendo is manufacturing any sort of shortage. We saw the numbers of units shipped increase over the past year, and they're still flying off the shelves. If Nintendo could double production overnight, I really think they would.

@ColoradoShark: Shortages on the Wii make no sense and here is why.

The hardware in the Wii is 7 years old. Its the same hardware that was in the gamecube just with higher clock rates. Time tested ways to make this stuff means there should be no huge flaws in the line which means more go out to stores. Nintendo could ramp up production if they choose.

I believe that yes the facilities where the Wii is being made are putting out 100% capacity. Nintendo could easily hire 1 more firm to make the console and meet demand. They dont want to do this because this shortage feeds into the hype.

The Wii is a gimick, and gimicks stick until everyone who wanted to join the party can. I bought a Wii on launch was was bored with it in a couple weeks. Nobody i know who owns a Wii uses it very often and there is a reason for it. Its great for a little while and every so often a game worth playing will come out but...other then the once and a while (nintendo made) game comes out there is no reason to pick up the controller and thats a fact Nintendo doesnt like sharing.

Game sales on the Wii are flat, you never hear Nintendo talking about how amazing 3rd parties are doing..because they arent. Just as it was with N64 and GCN before it, the Wii only sells Nintendo made games while 3rd party product wastes away on shelves.

If you can't get a Wii, get a DS to tide you over.

You have to keep in mind that Nintendo is also competing for sales of it's cames and accessories. You can't sell games to people who don't yet own the console. You definitely can't sell games to people who go out and buy a different console. Microsoft was desperately worried about PS3 being released a few months before XBox-360 for this very reason.

Apparently my brother bought one. So I'll get to try one out at Christmas time.

The Wii is the worst nintendo system i've played in a while. Graphics suck, waving around the controllers really sucks and I just don't see why it's so popular.

It's better to underproduce now, than to overproduce later.

The reason there are hardware shortages with the Wii are quite simple actually.

Normally, console sales cool off in the summer. Manufacturers then use this time to produce enough units for the upcoming Christmas season. What Nintendo didn't anticipate was that their sales would continue to be high over the summer months - effectively meaning they didn't build their anticipated surplus at their current rate of production.

In other words, because Wiis sold better than expected in August, they didn't have enough units for December.

It's like the old show-biz adage, "always leave them wanting more".

I think the controller is no more of a gimmick than a computer mouse for a PC is a gimmick. It was time that a system was designed around a controller that uses more than your thumbs. Seems demand is rewarding that choice over and over again-- not just with the Wii, but also DDR, Guitar Hero, the DS (with stylus), etc.

@parad0x360: ITS NOT A REBADGED GAMECUBE!

Im so sick of idiots spouting this line without any knowledge of whats in it. While the basic parts are the same yes, they are ALL uprated and much superior and faster to what was in the gamecube which DOES in fact make them new.

You wouldnt go saying your 7 year old computer has the same parts as your brand new dell even though it does.

Anyone still calling the Wii a gimmick hasn't played some of the recent titles.

Nintendo is doing a great thing, here. Penny-Arcade did a recent comic about how their grandparents own DS's, are playing Brain Age every day, yadda yadda. Instead of focusing on one quarter of the population, Nintendo is going for the whole enchilada, and it seems to be working. Note that sony isn't even TRYING to compete with Nintendo anymore.

Now, I only hope that they can keep up their production of quality games through the life cycle of the Wii.

The shortages do suck, though. I can't imagine that they're intentional - why would a company chose NOT to sell something that makes money?

The Wii is awesome. I bought one for me and my 6 year old son to bond last summer, and wow am I happy I did. I get to play old NES and N64 games and really like the "active" controllers. I don't understand why people "put it down" after two weeks. My son and I love it.

I don't understand why this console is not more available, but still contend that this console is the one to own. Bitch all you want....

I went to Circuit City when they opened at 11am on a Sunday morning.

They had several in stock.

I love my Wii.

@parad0x360: I totally agree with you! Waving the old Gamecube Remote around on my tiny black cube lost it's appeal after a while. In fact, purchasing Resident Evil 4/Wii, I was totally amazed that the controls were the exact same as the version for the Gamecube! And the Gamecube pack-in game, Gamecube Sports, was a total rehash of every other sports game out there with the minor, minor difference of being able to swing around the Gamecube Remote and really put myself "in the game", so to speak. But that too got old after a while and nobody comes over to play it with me anymore and my fondue platter just sits there collecting dust :( Maybe when that Wii remake of the Gamecube's Super Smash Brothers comes out, maybe then I'll have some people over to laugh at the iffy graphics that this console puts out, because everybody knows that games are crap without 720p (or 1080p) graphics. Heh, all these suckers buying the Wii for games. It can't even do high-definition graphics or play DVDs, let alone HD-DVD or BluRay!

The really neat part that the Wii totally duplicated was the ability for the Gamecube to go online and download old console games, like those NES games most of us grew up on.

So yeah, totally with you. The Xbox 360, when it's not in the shop, and the PS3, when it's not dusty, play tons of games in proper high definition, and you don't have the humility of waving a crazy stick around in the air and having fun -- these are serious gaming consoles that play serious games for serious people!

@vitonfluorcarbon:
I can't speak for the commenters here, but people don't get "Wii" because they see it from a gamer's POV, and Wii is not made for gamers. They made Wii for the general audience, who don't care about degree of difficulty or graphics or game depth - they just want to have fun.

The fact that you and your son both play it is what Nintendo had in mind, when they talked about bringing video games from bedrooms into living rooms.

It's really the same in any electronics category - there are people who judge products based on specs and features, and the 90% who just want a half decent user experience.

Last week I had a wii party at work. I love my wii.

@parad0x360: You are wrong. The Wii is not an "overclocked" GC.
You are wrong. The Wii is not a gimmick, it is a console gaming system that concentrates more on local multiplayer than any other, as well as supporting online multiplayer, right out of the box.
You are wrong. There are great games out for Wii. Even with the crappy mono sound flaw, my kids, wife, and I play GH3 at least a couple times a week. I use it to download and play classic games, as well as GC awesomeness like Metroid Prime. Lego Star Wars is loads of fun, too, and gets play a couple times a week.

This is really interesting. I live in a small town USA, we have all the "Most Hated" stores. All of them are out of stock with the Nintendo wii. I was lucky enough to buy one at my local Best Buy this Summer, there were only three boxes, I had one plus two guys. People saw us, and probably wishing that some of us will change our minds. I had kids following me (that was a bit uncomfortable). I love my wii, I know that the hype is Xbox 360 and PS3, but I am an old school gal whom grew up with Nintendo. I cannot tell you the fun I have right now playing Super Mario Galaxy. YAY!

PS. At Sam's Club and BBY still out of Stock!

Whatever happened to all those expensive consultants who get paid so much money to figure out how to exactly meet the exact amount of demand at the time that it's happening? Where are they?

I don't want one of these but if I did I'd find a shop that took back orders, order, and just let them keep track of their existing orders and ship it when it came in. It is not my job to do stores' work for them.

@Falconfire: Someone being wrong about a fact doesn't make them an idiot. It just means they don't know that fact.

I actually won my Wii in a raffle. It was the grand prize, and I hadn't thought that I would win it. I haven't played it much yet (no time), but I'm very happy with it so far :D

and no, I'm not a gamer. Wiis are made for non-gamers, and that's what I like about them. I want something intuitive to use, and fun to play. That's the Wii's target audience.

I like my Wii, don't LOVE it, but it's fun. The graphics no biggie, as Paradox360 says, the hardware is 7 years old. Prob. why they're keeping a tight leash on it, they know it's a glorified Gamecube and if floods the market, we'll end up with a glut of Wii's.

I will believe the Wii is not a gimmick system when there are some games that do NOT rely motion sensitive controls (excluding VC games).

Plus, the shortage now is really inexcusable now. They know that there a huge of a demand for the system. But they will not ramp up production.

Wii = fun. It's that simple. Yes, the graphics aren't all that and a bag of chips unlike my 360 - but, unlike my 360, it's never broken down.

The controller may be a gimmick now, but so was the now standard controller layout back in the day, so was portable gaming. Hell, so were home video games, the ability to record things on the TV and rock'n'roll music.

@sven.kirk: Why?

I don't agree with Mr. Tang and his fancy pants.

The Wii isn't something that Nintendo sells and forgets. Nintendo makes money on all the games it sells for the Wii.

So, it may be true that Generic Toy A runs the risk of cheesing off retailers or missing out on the hype if it has too many in stores, but for every Nintendo Wii not on the shelf, Nintendo is losing money on games not being sold for it.

Fancy pants economist needs to stick with what he knows.

@parad0x360: Trying to find a wii without success huh?

Many people choose to believe that the Wii is a gimmick system because of the lackluster system specs and the motion controller.

Most of the aforementioned people have not played any games on the Wii except for the ones based around the controller movement, like Wii Sports, Wario, or Rayman.

The fact of the matter is that the remote/nunchaku combo is a comfortable way to play normal video as well since you do not have to hold your hands 2 inches apart the entire time, you can move your arms about as you deem comfortable.

Zelda is a perfect example of a game you can spend hours in front of and not have your arms or hands become sore or cramp up from holding the controller the same way the entire time.

Zelda had hardly any movement-based controls, and was in fact playable without movement controls at all (It was also released for the gamecube for use with a gamecube controller), you could even plug a gamecube controller into the Wii and play it using that.

The fact of the matter is that the movement-controls made the game easier to play because instead of having to hold 2 buttons down at once or reach for a hard-to-reach hardly-ever-used button (white/black on xbox controller I'm looking at you) all you had to do was flick your wrist.

Both the movement aspect and the modular-plug aspect of the wiimote are revolutionary in the console market and we WILL see much more of this from other consoles in the future.

Wii is the best video game console ever. I've owned every major consoles: NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, PS, PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox360, and Wii. Wii is by far the MOST fun consoles among them. Yes I know PS3 and 360 have 10x better graphics. But the "FUN" factor of Wii games are just unbelievable. Even my parents enjoy them as much as I do.

@howie_in_az: LOL

Just bought Super Mario Galaxy last night. Fun, Fun, Fun! Whee!

Sony flooded the market. Thats why all those people who paid thousands of dollars on Ebay were idiots since you could find one a week after launch with no one wanting to buy.

If you are a family with children then the Wii is probably the console for you, especially if you like shovelware games. If you are a gamer that does not have friends over regularly you will soon be bored with the Wii, the only good thing is that if you decide to sell your Wii you can probably get more for it than what you paid originally. This system is really targeted at the families with children and its the first Nintendo system that I can actually say is targeted mostly towards families with children. The gamecube was just kinda normal and even though people criticized that for being a kids system I didn't really feel it was because it had plenty of games you could get into on it. The Wii just doesn't have much long lasting gameplay, which makes the console boring for adults.

The games library is improving but there are far more shovelware games and developers trying to cash in on the Wii's success than there are decent games, this is a fact that Nintendo likes to hide. There's probably 3% good games vs 97% bad games, Nintendo likes to hide this. The clerks at Gamestop here mostly tell customers buying the Wii to buy the first party Nintendo games and to avoid the others because they are bad. The truth is the game developers just stick anything on the shelves because they know people in America will buy anything for christmas if its targeted for kids.

The DS is the winner system and has games for BOTH adults and children, and it also has many of the same games available as the Wii does, save mario galaxy. Looking at the release lists there is no reason to buy both consoles because its the same games on both save a few titles (unless of course your the type of person who likes paying twice for the same game...)

I do agree that the Wii is geared more toward non gamers...I have a Wii and my fiancee and I love it. We're saving up for the 360 next because we are both gamers (both since we were kids) and like the selection of 'hardcore' games on the 360 better. The advantage of the Wii was that we could have our friends over and it wouldn't be 5 people watching while two people played, it would be four people playing a game. Yes, it's easier to play, but many people forget the basic reason to buy a console: TO HAVE FUN. If the Wii is fun for a lot of people, who are you to tell them they're buying into a gimmick or give them crap about it?

Many people argue the system is made with common parts and so it shouldn't be difficult to contract more manufacturers.

I think the reason Nintendo doesn't do this is two fold:
1) Nintendo has always been a stickler for quality control, and so they're very careful about who they pick and make sure the products that get their name on them are solid. So they probably don't want to just contract anyone. Especially since the controller is not something they would trust to just any manufacturer (in terms of industry secrets).
2) Nintendo suffered in the past 2 console generations (N64 and Gamecube) when compared to their competitors, and they don't have the financial backing of their competitors. So from the get go they erred on the side of caution because at the time they could not afford to be wrong about how many consoles would be enough. Too much would have been costly to the company.

Even now, although they're making tons of money, they are probably being careful because as many have already said, it could be that this Wii thing is a fad. (Not for me though, I love my Wii). A similar thing thing happened with the Nintendo DS (especially after the redesigned version, 'Lite,' was introduced) but eventually Nintendo caught up to demand and now the thing still sells out but at least it isn't difficult to find.

So although I think at first Nintendo was erring on the side of caution, the truth is they would much rather be able to meet this holiday season demand. But there's about a 5 month delay between asking for an increase in production and actually getting that increase, because it's not just one company that's making the console.

Look at it this way: Nintendo sold something around 13 million Nintendo Wiis in 1 year, and the Xbox360 sold a slightly larger amount in 2 years. I understand that the Xbox360 is a far more advanced console and so much more difficult to manufacture, but still to be able to sell 13 million consoles (of a new design mind you, yes it is virtually the same as the Gamecube but still, there are enough differences to warrant caution in mass production) with very little production problems landing on the consumer's shoulders is nothing short of impressive. Furthermore I'm sure loyal Consumerists have come across Nintendo stories on this website that exemplify their level of customer service. They go above and beyond in what use to be (and maybe still is?) the Japanese way of doing business.

What I don't get is how a console that is so freaking primitive in its hardware can be difficult to manufacture... Whereas the XBOX 360 and the Playstation 3 use complex processors, high-end graphics processors and have to power and cool the whole thing, the Wii is a lowly PowerPC. Should be a breeze to make them and yet they're even more scarce now than they were last year.

I love my Wii, but have no idea how a shortage is still possible.

The whole Ebay thing is interesting. I wanted a Wii for my Wife, and of course ran into problems finding one. Ebay sales all ended around $550.

Then finally I was alerted to them being in stock at Amazon. As I was ordering I suddenly thought about the $550 sales, and ordered 2 instead.

One for my Wife, and one sold on Ebay for $580. Which paid for the first one AND all my fee's AND some extra controllers.

The last thing I wanted was to become another Ebay scalper, but when you have the chance to get a free Wii then it really does make sense. I feel sorry for whoever felt the need to pay me $580 for my Wii when I got it for $249, but it isn't THAT hard to get them if you signup for the tracker sites or get in line at Bestbuy on a Sunday morning.

I think there are 1000's of people like me that saw this opportunity, and grabbed it.

@uricmu: A component is a component. The hard part isn't getting CPU's, or video chips. The hard part is the logistics of assembling them and getting them where you need them.

As long as the manufacturer of the chip doesn't have issues making them, then it doesn't matter whether you are ordering Cell processors (like in the PS3), Xbox GPU's or Wii chips, when you order one million of something, the problems are going to be related to getting them made at the speed your customer wants and getting them to the customer on time.

The shortage is largely a coastal (or urban-coastal) phenomenon, as best I can tell. Here in LA Wiis are nigh impossible to find. My friends who live in suburban Texas see them for sale at just about every Wal-Mart and Target around.

Umm, it's introductory economics. Keep supply short, demand up, and prices stay up too. Shift the supply curve right, and your prices drop...so why the hell do it if the brain-dead nation is still gobbling them up off the shelves?

My husband is a gamer, I am not. But we are both really loving our Wii. I think what it comes down to, as pointed out already, is that it's intuitive, easy to use, and simply fun. We also have a PS2 and my husband plays his more "gamer-like" games on that, but for simply relazing and having a good time, the Wii has been awesome. Our friends also have a great time with it when they come over. So, I don't really care if some people don't get it, or don't like to wave a controller around, or think it's a gimmick, or whatever. I really enjoy it.

In all the years I have watched video games consoles come and go, from the first Pong games to the present, the Wii is the only console that has managed to be the hottest console for two consecutive Christmases.

From a business standpoint, their pricing model is something to be admired. $249 for the console. Oh, you want to have 2, 3, or 4 people playing at the same time - add $60 each for a remote and nunchuk. Want HD cables? Add $32.

And people will pay those prices. Got mine yesterday at a Toys R Us. A friend called my wife and she made it in an hour later in the morning. They still had them in stock. ;)

folks, nintendo is (& always has been) about the gimmick. c'mon. powerglove, anybody? virtual boy? nes zapper? e-reader? game boy player? should i keep going?

that doesn't mean nintendo games don't rock...they do. but i won't be buying a wii...at least not until they 1) release a constant stream of great video games or, 2) get someone else to do it for them.

& when i say constant stream, i don't mean:
1st qtr: zelda
2nd qtr: super paper mario
3rd qtr: metroid
4th qtr: super mario galaxy
1st qtr: smash bros.
2nd qtr: mario kart
etc., etc.

seriously?

oh, incidentally, if you haven't picked up super monkey ball, pick it up...it's fun as hell.

Why don't they just increase the prices until they stop selling out. It seems obvious to me, but I have no idea why they don't do it. Something like $300-350 should work. Then they can just lower the prices later as sales slow down.

Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo's U.S. division, denies this, saying Nintendo simply didn't anticipate this level of demand for the Wii this holiday season

That's not what the guy at RadioShack told me... According to the manager there - who I overheard speaking to a customer seeking a Wii while I searched for decent items to build a DIY OTA HDTV Antenna - stated they only get 3 units a week and on random days so they couldn't tell exactly when they would be released. He also said that some stores were even on a priority list for being able to possibly sell more units than others.

I believe this a case to be the left hand catching your attention while the right hand does the dirty work (Sleight of hand trick).