14 DAY TRIAL // We've informed you about Nintendo's issue before, but now it seems that the Wii shortage problem is getting serious and it might even cost the company about $1 billion at Christmas time. According to the analysts quoted by New York Times in their story about Nintendo's console shortage, they should be producing double the quantity of Wii-s they're making available now.
Sony's rival is only able to ship about 1.8 million such gaming devices a month, but the demand surpasses this number, being almost double. The shortage can be felt specially in the UK and the US, where people are hunting down game shops that sell Wii consoles, as well as memorizing the delivery trucks' routes. While Nintendo's representatives admit that the console shortage "is a good problem to have", they won't be smiling once the year is over, since they could have been $1 billion richer if they were able to produce more devices.
It turns out that Nintendo isn't to blame for this problem, bur rather the worldwide shortage of disk drives, that's all affecting several other major producers of such devices. Strangely enough, there's no complain coming from Microsoft, let alone Sony who must have gone Blu-ray for a reason. Imagine running out of Blu-rays one days.... Now that would be a tragedy! So what does this console shortage mean to us, gamers?
Basically, we won't be seeing so many Wii ads (hooray! no more TV brainwashing!), but we won't be seeing so many cool casual games either (boo! bad news for grandparents saving money for their children). You might think that the potential buyers of Nintendo's over-selling console will turn to its rivals, but this is highly unlikely, since many people don't have the gaming crave (and cash) to buy a PS3 or Xbox 360. The only logical thing to do is rationalize Wii consoles and make them last for everyone, but what you'll get is huge queues in shops, angry buyers and months-long waiting lists for a mere casual games platform... Is it worth it? Leave a comment below to let us know what's your take on Nintendo's issues!