The Nintendo Wii U has sold out of pre-orders across the US. Yesterday, the biggest game retailer in the world, GameStop, announced that Wii U demand has been “off the charts”. Even Nintendo has said that Wii U demand has been “extremely strong”. But not everyone is impressed by the success of the Wii U so far.
Analyst Colin Sebastian over at R.W. Baird believes it’s all a calculated move by Nintendo to “generate a perception” that the Wii U is in demand. He believes that these sellouts across retail stores isn’t necessarily a negative thing, but says that it’s either neutral or slightly positive.
He also believes that Nintendo will start manufacturing the Wii U later this month, at 1.5 million units per month. This is on par with what Michael Pachter recently predicted.
Despite being unimpressed by the fact that the Wii U has sold out already, Sebastian does make one important point: the launch will be very important for Nintendo in terms of having enough units, but not too many. He said:
“You want a combination of as many units as possible, that are also perceived to be in short supply, but you don’t want to under supply the market so people go out and by something else.”
Nintendo is likely trying to create more buzz by limiting the amount of consoles available — that’s nothing new, gaming and consumer electronics companies have been doing that for decades. However, should the Wii U be in very short supply, consumers who wished to get one might just buy another console or spend their money on something else entirely. It’s a delicate balance, something Nintendo has plenty of experience with since it launched the Wii back in 2006.
Overall, despite the sellouts and high demand for the Wii U, these analysts still appear to be very cautious, some even wonder if the Wii U can build enough buzz.
We have no idea how many Wii U units Nintendo had allocated to retailers for pre-orders. There have been rumors that it’s in the 3-400,000 range, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever know. At this point, it probably wouldn’t hurt if Nintendo started promising retailers some more inventory for pre-orders.
