Nintendo Struggling To Meet Wii Demand

Nintendo Europe's senior marketing director, Laurent Fischer, has said that the company's struggling to get enough Wiis onto shop shelves.

"We are still struggling to deliver the right numbers of hardware to cope with demand," said Fischer. "We're planning to increase the production capacity but it's not something that can be done in a couple of days. We have to be patient.”

Fischer is keen to point out that the problem originates from high levels of demand rather than production inadequacies, however."It's astonishing to think that with six million we're not able to fulfil the initial demand," Fischer said, referring to Nintendo's target of shipping 6-million consoles by the end of March.

Expanding, Fischer said, "We're having difficulty coping with demand because of the recruiting power of the Wii. It's even more powerful than anyone had guessed. We're confident the strategy is working, we saw it with the DS, this is what happens when you reach an expanded audience and keep the regular gamers."

It's hardly the worst problem in the world, is it?

Nintendo already upped its earnings predictions for the fiscal year ending this month thanks to the unexpected success of the Wii and DS. That, however, was back in January. If Nintendo noted that demand was exceeding expectations two months ago, shouldn't it have been able to increase its production levels to meet it by now?

Fischer was telling us way back in mid-December, “Rest assured more stock is already on its way and we are doing everything possible to ensure that a steady supply of Wii units is shipped to stores across Europe throughout December and into 2007.” His tune doesn't seem to have changed much, does it?

Still, SPOnG has to admire such a savvy piece of spin when it sees it. Have you tried and failed to get a Wii? Let us know in the Forum.

^{Source:MCV[/b]}