Topic: Wii Manufacturing Ahead of Schedule

[WindyMan]

Analyst claims Nintendo already has two million consoles stockpiled; suggests there may be as many as 11 million available by the end of 2006.

Officially, Nintendo has gone on record as saying that they wanted to ship four million Wii consoles worldwide by the end of the calendar year, and two million more by the end of their fiscal year in March 2007 (as previously reported).  We've also learned that the company is looking to provide at least one million systems for North America when the Wii launch arrives on November 19 of this year.  That's a decent amount of hardware to come to market with on opening day, especially considering Xbox 360 and PS3 launch quantities.    

Nintendo's current shipment estimates may be just the tip of the iceberg.  According to Alex Gauna and Steven Chin, both analysts for investment firm UBS, Nintendo has already completed production on two million Wii consoles, and may have the capacity to build between seven to nine million more by the end of the calendar year--up to eleven million in total.  That's over twice the as many consoles Nintendo is aiming for.    

If this turns out to be true, i's almost assured that everyone in the world that wants a Wii this year won't have too much difficulty finding one.  Of course, we'll have to see if Nintendo can actually sell those consoles at the same pace they are being constructed.    

We will find out in six more weeks.

[Caliban]

It's not like we are getting it any sooner so why even bother to release such news.
How much does an "analyst" get paid?

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: Caliban
It's not like we are getting it any sooner so why even bother to release such news.
How much does an "analyst" get paid?

Well for those of us that want Nintendo to do well it is important. This story shows that Nintendo should have the ability to meet demand all throughout the holidays and well into next year. It may seem like a minor thing, but I believe lack of systems, even after the holidays was the one big thing that hurt MS and the Xbox 360. So yeah, this is good news to release for those of us that don't want Nintendo to fall into the MS trap of shortages MONTHS after launch.
 

[KDR_11k]

This is the opposite of the Sony "manufacturing behind schedule" stories we see every day.