jasonjayhawk

CSUSam

.

.

At most, it was a zer-sum outcome, with the later decrease in ebay prices offsetting the earlier rises, where the market would in general have been lower and less volatile had the stock-piled supply been there all along.

Promethean

kman41

kwa4250

kwa4250

If you look at completed auctions, the Wiis that didn't sell were the inexperienced sellers who listed them with starting prices over $200 or had high reserves. The truth is that true scalpers don't move much merchandise on Ebay. Nobody will bid on overly inflated prices from the beginning. It is the frenzy of the bidding war that gets the blood flowing and gets people to pay more than they should. If that is wrong, then all auctions should be banned, live or online.

jstonemo

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

superphildo

rockett1

yaksplat

Jim on the Wall

Retailers have been holding back Wii stock since the console first came out so this is nothing new. They want to get customers into the door with the promise of the hot item being in stock that day, once they get you in the door they expect you to buy SOMETHING since you waited in line to get into the store. This creates more sales in general. It also gives them a chance to steer potential Wii buyers into buying another video game system or high priced item if the Wii is sold out when the buyers get to the store. Retailers have the power to control the crowds provided you succumb to it.

SaraAB87

For a new Wii package from ebay, figure an average of $25 shipping, totaling $375, compared to a store-bought Wii at $250 + an average tax of $15.

This yields $375 total for a gray market price over $265 for store-bought, meaning the holiday gray market buyer paid a 41% premium for their new Wii. The gray-market customer has additional risk of getting scammed or having to spend several days bidding on auctions to reach a price they want.

I spent five days hunting on ebay and wound up with a used Wii for $310 with shipping. The seller also had problems with their paypal setup so I had to spend an hour on the phone correcting their problem and making the payment go through.

The only way Nintendo would be a success at torpedoing the gray market would be if selling in the gray market would no longer be profitable. And that measure of success certainly wasn't achieved by Nintendo this holiday season.

This article's graph even shows the lowest price at November 1st was about the same as right before Christmas. So end result, we are right back where we started and prices are still 41% above the MSRP.

PCGuy

How does Nintendo benefit from anyone stockpiling their product? In fact, they probably catch flak like this for that exact reason. Everyone blames Nintendo for holding stock, and yet, it could've very well been retailers holding onto it so, as I said prior, they can regulate a 'flood' of consumers in to buy products that are hot in waves. Release a few hundred Wiis into a market area on X weekend, and make sure there's plenty of games, movies, gaming accessories, iPods, etc. out on the shelf so those too are seen, and impulse buying is done. Nintendo does not benefit from holding onto the stock, at least in the capacity that retailers do, and as I said prior, retailers have a lot more power than you probably realize.

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

crapsh00t

Ah, a very compelling argument. If your purpose was persuasion you failed miserably. Everyone wants a DS in Japan but you don't see conspiracy theories about nintendo holding back the DS supply in Japan. Why not? because they will sell regardless of stock. Just as the Wii would sell if it was in stock. Granted once black friday hits and people are looking for that "Hot" item, that's when it counts. But to think they did it a whole year just for that. sorry buddy, that's just not logical.

NeoAkira

@ampillion : works it harder, makes it better, does it faster, makes us stronger.:

Whatever dude; why do you think all retailers stockpiled? Nintendo was the mastermind behind it all. They told retailers to do it. So you can blame Nintendo for it. It doesn't even matter whether you think it was a good or bad thing. Nintendo was behind it or at the very least supported it.

perdevious

Now, had you said, 'Hey, Nintendo's been holding back stock to meet holiday demand, which has actually helped to increase it's hype as a hot object for the holidays.', I'd say cool, makes sense. But just stating your little one-liners? Yeah, go hate around someplace else and come back when you've either got some proof or some reasonable argument as to how the demand is entirely driven by Nintendo themselves.

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

ithcy

Curse

Which shows how insane people are for even parts of the Wii.

Turael

[www.google.com]

False shortage (or engineered shortage, contrived shortage, manufactured shortage, etc.) is a very real economic strategy, and Nintendo would not be the only supplier of goods ever to create one. Far from it.

It's well-known, in fact, that they did the very same thing in 1988 with NES cartridges. They had the manufacturing capacity, they had the orders, but they intentionally kept retailers in short supply in order to create consumer hysteria and drive up demand. It was a successful strategy back then and there's no reason (well, almost no reason) it wouldn't be successful now.

ithcy

brandonf

brandonf

That is IF and only IF you eat every word Reggie speaks as absolute truth, I, for one, do not.

Amaryllis

Well, doesn't matter really. It's too late now. They certainly can't RAISE the price now, but I bet they're kicking themselves for not having done so before launch.

jeffj-nj

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad I got mine at retail price, and I'm glad that price was low, but I wouldn't've minded paying a little extra, and it seems extremely obvious that most other people wouldn't've minded either. For all the money Nintendo is raking in right now, just imagine if they were picking up an extra $50 per console, instead of unlicensed retailers picking up 2-3 times that.

Bottom line, EVERYONE under-estimated the Wii - even Nintendo themselves.

jeffj-nj

People and THINGS, how odd really.

sadkermit - soon to be banned for standing up to the ummm nazi.

So, what's the deal? Nintendo keeps a bunch of Wiis? Then Wiis are hard to get? And then, because Wiis are hard to get, people want them? First of all, that's an enormous confusion between cause and effect, but whatever, we'll let it slide. I want to focus on the core element of the theory, which seems to be that people feel Nintendo wants to make more money... by NOT selling as many of their product as they possibly can, as fast as they possibly can?

Seriously, wtf people? Explain to me how that makes any sense at all.

jeffj-nj

Demand dropped off around the 17th as someone else said - because there's no use buying it after that because you would likely not get it in time for Christmas, which is the whole point of the build up in demand.

Demand also probably dropped off toward the middle of December as people either got one, or decided they wouldn't be able to get one, so got something else instead - which is something N would be worried about since that's lost money in their pocket.

$Bill$G$

Nintendo could've done a lot better for themselves if they had temporarily added production capabilities through contracting, licensing, ANYTHING.

crapsh00t

you be all boring and throwing money about sony-like.

Boo. :p

Onizuka-GTO

Phantom_Photon

mzs

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

Something tells me that retailers are bound to start doing this a lot more often now, during the holidays, to control 'floods' of people coming into their store. They can stockpile a device all year long, leak bits and pieces out to their various retail chains to keep constant sales alive... and then when they want to start moving stuff, proclaim 'We've got X! This weekend!' And next weekend too. And another weekend down the road, just a few days away from Christmas. No magical 'Wow they shipped more consoles/units.', a shrewdly planned market strategy.

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

Oh, and selling a Wii on Facebook's marketplace plants a firm facepalm to selling a Wii on eBay because you can set your price. I put mine up at midnight EST during the first week of December and had 4 offers by the time I woke up the next morning.

FeendRendor

Right I forgot this capitalism thing has been so amazing so far, that's why the US economy is doing so amazing right now. =-O oh wait...

NeoAkira

Amaryllis

With a raincheck in-hand, people don't consider eBay to be a better alternative, and so don't bother to bid on a Wii on eBay, which keeps the bid price of Wiis on eBay down. If the bid price stays down, profit margins disappear, and resellers stop buying up Wiis to auction off. This means more Wiis at retail locations, and gradually the need for rainchecks goes away.

The real question is, will the Wii maintain its sales momentum once the perceived "shortage" has been rectified? I'm certainly glad that I bought a Wii when I did, but I have met more than my share of people who purchased one just because it was the hot gadget of the time, and who have since sold theirs or are allowing it to collect dust. They just wanted to be able to say, "the Wii? Oh, yeah, I have one of those."

Andy S.

> Nicely done Nintendo.

How so? If they had just shipped all the systems they were making instead of stockpiling them the very same Wiis that showed up around Dec 17th would have been in stores earlier and the people who bought them on or after the 17th would have bought them earlier (and resold them on Ebay earlier). The demand for Wiis didn't change. The supply of Wiis didn't change. All that happened was that Nintendo CREATED a shortage by holding some Wiis off the market and then flooded* the market with the Wiis that they had been holding off?

I fail to see any benefit.

*since the demand is still outstripping supply they didn't actually FLOOD the market but they tried...

artki

Highlander Wolf

kwa4250

NeoAkira

rockett1

Smash_Bro

I just have to say to them: I told you so, and next time maybe you should rethink that launch console reservation you lazy bastards.

-WPack911 ;P

WPack911

WII STATION? Wow, what shame.

I have yet to see someone walking through the fisher price aisle looking for it.

I <3 you Wii.

theboyfrombrasil

rockett1

"What system is Wii Sports on?"

classic

theboyfrombrasil

Fonzy

I'm not too concerned about attach rates for the PS3 yet as the good titles are coming out slowly but hopefully increasing. With the Wii continuing to sell systems at a crazy pace, would that artificially lower the attach rate? (That is, older Wii users now have x numbers of games, but newer ones only have a a couple and there are SO MANY new ones that it's skewing the rates?)

SSJPabs

NoBullet

True story: I didn't even want a Wii. I went with a friend on launch day because he didn't want to wait in line. I ended up getting a ticket, and decided to buy one and resell on eBay. After getting home and playing my friend's Twilight Princess and Wii Sports, I decided getting rid of my Wii was foolish.

I'd pay $400 for a Wii. Nintendo needs to curb demand the economics way, by raising the price. Obviously people will pay $400 for it, it's like Nintendo is throwing away $150.

Smash_Bro

DarkNight_DS

DarkNight_DS

especially considering if you look at sales numbers (as usual) few third party game sales come close to comparing to nintendos first party game sales....nintendo fans buy nintendo colsoles to play nintendo games.

casuals buy the wii to play wii sports. think about that, actually. wii sports has got to be the most expensive console game ever....people pay $250 (and more, obviously) just to play wii sports.

karl_hungus

EnigmaNemesis

I think the market ,may recover to something between 350-400 right now, but nothing like the beautiful gold mine that it was. Oh well, that's how the market works.

SSJPabs

deadlizard

Foxstar Sixtail

Heyyou27

rockett1

But what games are they buying?

Since the Wii's attachment rate is so low!

EnigmaNemesis

ceilingFANBOY

Hiero Glyph

PissedPS3Fan

rockett1

Garcia

Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc

Dont need one, just use the generic pic. Nobody really cares on eBay, as long as you have a good rating and are descriptive ... unless of course yours is used then that is understandable about the camera.

EnigmaNemesis

I think that will finally change when the Wiis hit at the end of January. We'll see some shortages leading up to Smash Bros., but not anything like what's went on so far and I think Nintendo is going to make sure these things are on the shelf for anyone and everyone who wants to buy a copy of the console along with Smash. Hopefully I'm right, because if not, sellers on eBay will be making a tidy sum once again when that game is released.

Sloopydrew

rockett1

@jayntampa: It does? Where? I missed it.

Foxstar Sixtail

mac-phisto

Fascinating post.

jayntampa

altgod

Fert

indiemike

Christoph

They are still selling them between $330-$400. Still a nice profit, and still selling.

EnigmaNemesis

PresDNA

Money rules all, i suppose.

theboyfrombrasil

drlard

my girlfriend got my wii by following [www.consolewatch.com] and it was really helpful, hopefully it can be helpful for others (note: this seems to be a canadian only site...just a heads up!)

drlard

Foxstar Sixtail

Black_Ops_19