Topic: why did nintendo pull a sony on PURPOSE

[seen33]

Sony with the ps2 had huge demands for not enough shipment.. sony admited they messed up and should of put more.

now with the DS nintendo purpsoly limited all the DS.  the wal-mart i work at gets roughly 200 000 visitors on a sunday yet we only got 60 units.  I wondered why and then found out we wanted to order hundreds WAY back but nintendo restriced us.  i heard from friends who work at other stores that the same thing happened there.  Why did nintendo purposly undership units when retailers wanted more from them?  now thier all sold out in like a couple hours and no1 can get a DS.

is this a money making scheme to build more hype for the system?  cause it looks like it to me  

[joshnickerson]

I doubt it. Nintendo's actually outsourced a third factory to produce more DSs. They can't just snap their fingers and magically pull 1,000,000 more units out of their @$$. There's such a thing as production time, and if the final unit was only finalized a few months ago, of course there's going to be a limited number to go around.

[Bill Aurion]

I think it has to do more with Ninty not expecting the console to be so popular...Even I have to admit that I thought the DS pull would be slow, especially with very little advertising until recently, but that's obviously not the case...In my opinion it's a good thing, and I'm sure Ninty will do its best to ship as many consoles as they can here...

[Perfect Cell]

Sony with the ps2 had huge demands for not enough shipment.. sony admited they messed up and should of put more.


Sony did it on purpose, they just claim they didnt.... Its smart to make it seem like the console is more popular than it trully is.  

[ruby_onix]

With the PS2 (I can't remember if it was in Japan or America, I think the same thing happened in both Japan and America), the PS2 hype-machine was at incredible rocket-ship levels, and Sony said that they were going to explode onto the scene with a million units (in a single territory, not worldwide) on launch day.

Then like a week before the launch, Sony said "Oh wait, did we say a million? Sorry. We can't do a million. We'll have 500,000 (although there will be a million before Christmas). OMG! There's a shortage! Run! Get it while you can!"

Nintendo said a long time ago that the Japanese DS launch shipment was going to be 300,000 at launch day, and build up to 1 million available before the end of the calendar year.

The American DS launch is supposed to be very similar, but (last I checked) NOA hasn't given out any numbers. They'll "have as many units available, as quick as they can".

The "worldwide" DS number is expected to be 4.5 million by next March (the end of the fiscal year).

Then two million Japanese people preordered the DS, even though only half of those people are going to be able to get one anytime this year, so Nintendo said "Oh snap. This thing's really popular. What can we do to make more units available?" Then they announced that they were outsourcing more stuff to China, which should help them make even more units, but they don't know exactly how many.

[Mario]

Nintendo did NOT do this on purpose, Reggie has said that if they could get more DS systems to stores, they would.

[MaleficentOgre]

I think Nintendo had no frickin clue that the demand was going to be this high.  They probobly figured that people would think it was a gimmik and need more proof.  Guess they were wrong.

[couchmonkey]

I don't think Nintendo did this on purpose.  If it could sell 10 million DS's right away, it would.  Then Sony would be pre-doomed to failure.

[Chongman]

I think the PSP is already pretty much screwed when it comes to userbase. By the time PSP debuts in North America, there'll most likely be somewhere between 4-6 million DSes sold already worldwide at least. And guess what'll most likely come out in march (if ninty's smart that is). The new super mario bros will kick the ever loving crap out of the PSP if ninty hypes it and markets it well enough.  

[God Speaks]

That's like asking why seen33 uses a subject line that pre-supposes a conclusion before asking the question.

Quote
Originally posted by: ruby_onix
With the PS2 (I can't remember if it was in Japan or America, I think the same thing happened in both Japan and America), the PS2 hype-machine was at incredible rocket-ship levels, and Sony said that they were going to explode onto the scene with a million units (in a single territory, not worldwide) on launch day.

Then like a week before the launch, Sony said "Oh wait, did we say a million? Sorry. We can't do a million. We'll have 500,000 (although there will be a million before Christmas). OMG! There's a shortage! Run! Get it while you can!"

Worse than that. They promised delivery of 100,000 consoles a week after launch which turned to 50,000 which then turned 25,000.

[seen33]

actually i think there will be a price drop when psp comes out.  even if its a small one like $20.. im sure it will help alot.

[God Speaks]

^
Sorry, my response was in response to YOUR first post.

[Truthliesn1seyes]

Nintendo isn't doing this on purpose and you also have to take into account that the Japanese and US release is about a week or so apart.  No one has ever pulled a worldwide release for a system (as far as I know) so a shortage should be the norm.  

As for what Nintendo should do to combat the PSP is release Pokemon in Japan on the same day Sony is set to release its killer ap for the PSP ( whatever it will be cuase I see little at the moment, I guess maybe gran turismo)  Pokemon for the DS will take out any game Sony can pay to have on their PSP hands down.  The only games I can see that''ll put up a decent fight salewise compared to a pokemon DS would be a new final fantasy or dragon quest on the PSP.  I for one believe we'll see final fantasy on the DS before it graces the PSP.  

[Maleficent2]

Check Targets I just bought one an hour ago and they had at least 20 more.


Mal

[MaleficentOgre]

what, there's a little me!  I'm hoping that there is a price drop when PSP comes out.  I really hope there's a player's choice lineup on DS

[enigma487]

in reply to the first post....
Don't you think Nintendo would have shipped more if they had them.  seriously.

[Darc Requiem]

On purpose!? Think about what you were saying. The PSP launches 4 months after the DS in the US and only 10 days after the DS in Japan. Nintendo wants to sell as many DS's as possible to get as big a lead over the PSP as soon as possible. Intentionally shorting themselves wouldn't make any sense.  

[kirby_killer_dedede]

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
I think it has to do more with Ninty not expecting the console to be so popular...Even I have to admit that I thought the DS pull would be slow, especially with very little advertising until recently, but that's obviously not the case...In my opinion it's a good thing, and I'm sure Ninty will do its best to ship as many consoles as they can here...

Yeah.  Back when the DS was still on schedule to be revealed at E3 (this is before anyone Nintendo announced the DS in January, but when it was just a mysterious new innovation to be revelaed at E3), I remember Iwata saying something along the lines of, "It's not going to be big.  I don't expect anyone to clap when we show it at E3.  I'd be surprised if a few people did."

So Nintendo wasn't expecting big enough things for the DS.   I got mine on Sunday of course, but my neighbor asked me to call Gamestop for her, and they told me they were sold out - and that they'd only gotten 100 units to begin with.  Sounds even worse for your Wal-Mart situation, seen, but then again, Wal-mart's not one of the nation's biggest gaming chains, now is it?

[Gamefreak]

Nintendo did do this on purpose with the N64 launch. However they didn't do this with the DS launch. They genuinely underestimated the popularity of the DS.

[ruby_onix]

Actually, I don't think Nintendo did this kind of thing on purpose with the N64 either.

IIRC, the Saturn and Playstation had both launched and were fighting with each other for about a year, and then the N64 launched and instantly had a bigger userbase than either of them, just from the launch shipment alone.

Then Nintendo was completely sold out of product before Christmas, and surveys were saying that parents were going into stores to get N64s for their kids, but couldn't find any, so they bought their kids PlayStations instead, and Sony shot up into the lead again.

Then after Christmas when Nintendo finally had units to sell again, people complained that there were no "new games" to excite people into buying N64 units, so Sony got to keep their lead and held onto it (in no small part due to their iron grip on the third parties) until today and beyond.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

And that got Microsoft thinking about their next scheme.

Gates: Bring me a PlayStation!
Minion: Yes, master.

*1 hour later*

Gates: Ha!  This PlayStation is brilliant!
Minion: Try an N64, master, they're much better.
Gates: Hmmm...bring me an N64!
Minion: Yes, master.

*1 hour later*

Gates: Wow, this N64 is terrific!
Minion: Yes, master.
Gates: Hmmm...we could turn this into an evil plot of corporate takeover!
Minion: Yes, master.
Gates: Or we could steal it.  Yes!  We will steal the N64 and PlayStation, stick it in one of our l33t PCs and shake it all up!  That will be our new plot! Video games today...tomorrow, the world!

And that's how the Xbox was born.