In pursuit of a Nintendo Wii

Last Christmas Becca's parents gave us an IOU for a Nintendo Wii.¹ Becca has been wanting one for quite some time, and she was very excited about it. However, actually finding one to buy has been even more difficult than we anticipated. Following her customary tactics, Becca has dived completely into the subject, searching forums and websites for tips and tricks on how to find one in stock. She gets text message and email alerts when people find them in stock online. She printed out bar codes for the Wii so we can scan them at price-checking stations at Target to see if any are in the stockroom. Every time we are at a major retailer we stop by the electronics section just to check. She is on a mission, and eventually, she'll find one.

But how long will it be? All the salespeople we have spoken with have said there are very few being shipped right now, perhaps due to the rain check certificates stores like Game Stop were selling before Christmas. They sold a lot of those IOU's, and now they have to make good on the deals. I've also heard that demand for the system is starting to grow in Europe and Asia, and now that there are quite a few good games for the Wii, more people want to buy it. So demand has stayed astronomically high, despite the fact that the system is more than a year old.

Yesterday Becca got a text alert that Amazon.com had Wii's in stock, but by the time she hit the check-out button, they were already out of stock. At that speed, they sold out in less than 10 minutes. Becca was really disappointed, but now she has her Amazon account all set up for one-click purchasing. We'll get one eventually, but it may be next Christmas at this rate.²

A lot of people have speculated as to why there aren't enough Wii's. Some say Nintendo is intentionally limiting production, fueling demand. Others say that demand growth in Europe and Asia outstripped Nintendo's expectations. But I think this cartoon is my favorite hypothesis as to why there aren't enough Nintendo Wii's. (Click to enlarge.)
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¹ I maintain my position that the name 'Wii' is the stupidest possible name for a game system. It's not even pronounceable in Japanese and in many other languages. Naming video game consoles for bodily functions ranks pretty high on my stupid list. They should have stuck with the development name, which was 'Revolution.' The console actually is quite revolutionary, and it would have fit quite well.
² I should note that if we really wanted one, we could hit a store Sunday morning. Many retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and others save their units all week and only sell them Sunday morning. But we don't really feel like buying stuff on Sunday, so we're focusing on stores like Target, K-Mart, and Game Stop that sell
their units on the day they receive them.