14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, NextGeneration posted a telephone interview of George Harrison, Nintendo's senior VP of marketing and corporate communications, in regards to GameStop's accusations of deliberate Wii shortage. The man responded to those accusations:
"No, that's not at all the case. We have worldwide territories that are all competing over the available production. The Japan and European markets are doing extremely well with the Wii. People in Japan at NCL [Nintendo Co. Ltd.] are making the best decisions that they can about which products get shipped to which market and when." He also added that "GameStop's an important customer" and that "Every retailer would want to have more [Wiis]. I think [DeMatteo's comments] may have been GameStop's way of trying to request more."
And why wouldn't that be true? No, first of all, why would Nintendo not ship any Wiis to GameStop if demand was flourishing? What, George Harrison and DeMatteo hate each other's guts? That's not the case and even if it were, Nintendo still would have shipped the retailer a bunch of units, as both manufacturing company and retailer need to sell units, period. But neither Nintendo, nor GameStop are saying anything about any Wiis. So then Nintendo really isn't shipping units to GameStop. You're confused right? You want to know the answer. The machine is simply doing great. It's kicking the PS3's and the 360's a**es at the same time, all four buttocks. There just aren't enough to go around.