Gamestop COO: Nintendo holding back Wii supplies

by JC Fletcher { Mar 27th 2007 at 4:25PM }

It's our second "Nintendo holding back Wii shipments until April 1st" conspiracy theory of the day! This time, it's for a completely different reason.

GameStop's COO Dan DeMatteo posited that since Nintendo has met their sales goal for this fiscal year, they're putting off the next shipment until the next year starts, which is April 1st. DeMatteo expects to see Wii supplies pick up right about then. We hope he's right! Not necessarily about the conspiracy thing, but about the increase in Wii shipments. The 1st isn't that far away!

[Via GoNintendo]

Tags: gamestop, nintendo, nintendo wii, NintendoWii, rumors, shipments, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Marcelo @ Mar 27th 2007 4:31PM

I was at an EB Games looking for a DS Lite (I have a Wii already) and the girl at the counter said the same thing - that shipments are being delayed until the next fiscal year begins. Makes sense.

I'm just waiting for when DS Lites and Wiis will be as plentiful as XBox 360's and PS2's, both of which are fairly popular.

Dbs143 @ Mar 27th 2007 5:35PM

april 1st is april fools day, remember...

hvnlysoldr @ Mar 27th 2007 5:36PM

If this really is intentional shortage, it's got to be one of the worst and best. It's the worst since to drive demand by scarcity would mean to have as few units available to purchase as possible. Which doesn't make sense compared to the Japanese sales charts and NPD numbers. When you're selling several HUNDRED Thousands of DS Lites and Wiis in Japan a WEEK and hundreds thousands in US a month as well, is that really a scarcity? You're selling millions of products and building new plants and it's still selling out? They're selling millions, how could they still be holding out? So it's the best launch orchestration ever that with withheld product they sell millions of units and it's still sold out for four and a half months.

ghnvt @ Mar 27th 2007 9:35PM

I can't wait to see how many Wiis sell when they are readily available because I know quite a few people that still haven't gotten one yet. I think that the Wii could catch up to the 360 by the time Halo 3 is released upon the masses.

lynch @ Mar 27th 2007 8:47PM

such a sad april fools day joke

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http://www.howtogetfreewiipoints.com

The Phil @ Mar 27th 2007 10:12PM

Just my luck. The week I finally buy a wii and expect it to come in, it's likely to be delayed another week... Ah it's no big deal, I'm in no rush cause I don't care about the wii and this causes me to continue not caring so much, lol.

Tim @ Mar 28th 2007 2:21AM

I hate all this "pre-April-1st" nonsense, it's bad enough having to put up with crappy lackluster pranks on the actual day, but why the hell do we have this junk appearing all through March?

Almadi @ Mar 28th 2007 9:19AM

reminds me of a comic I did:

http://madiart.blogspot.com/2007/03/wfgn-7.html

Almadi @ Mar 28th 2007 9:21AM

Sorry, that was #7, the correct one was #8:

http://madiart.blogspot.com/2007/03/ahead-of-arbitrary-schedule.html

Wish there was a way to delete a previous comment

Matt @ Mar 28th 2007 1:59PM

I knew it. Nintendo has been playing us all for fools since Christmas. By intentionally holding back console shipments, they've sunk even lower than Sony.

Smoke @ Mar 28th 2007 2:06PM

Ah, I love stupid rumors like this, because they're very common and are usually heard from retail customers as well. They're easily shot down too.

Why would ANY company REFUSE to sell product that'll otherwise sit in storage and just cost money when there's a huge demand for it, and they make quite a profit off of it as well?

It doesn't make any sense economically, and selling would make the customers happier since there's enough, instead of pissing off those who can't get any, resulting in potential bad press.

TeamAwesome @ Mar 28th 2007 2:42PM

Why hold back until April 1st.... well for all you non business people out there, here's my take. Nintendo is a publicly traded company, thus it ultimitly answers to it's stock holders. Stock holders like to see things like "sales goals being me" and "continued profit streams"

By waiting until next FISCAL year (april 1st), Nintendo's executives are guaranteeing that not only will they be able to meet their sales goals this year, but also the following year. (Meeting or doing better than your sales goals make investors comfortable with buying your stock, thus causing shares to gain value) It's really more about their stock prices than it is about gamers... but isn't that usually the case?