Wii drought set to continue

Thursday 12 April 2007
The severe stock shortages of Nintendo's Wii are set to continue "for some time", according to Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan, vice-president of marketing and corporate affairs.

Right now, it's next to impossible to simply head into a shop and buy yourself a Wii in either the US or Europe, with staggering demand for Nintendo's new console continuing nearly four months after launch.

Wii is "so very popular that we may see a supply/demand situation last for some time," Kaplan told podcast site Game Theory, despite Nintendo being at "maximum production".

"The number of units we have been able to produce has far exceeded our hardware production in the past," Kaplan explained. Although, when Kaplan was asked if she had an estimate of when the Wii shortage might ease up, her answer was simply "I don't at this very moment".

We called our local videogame shop, who told us that they'd actually received "plenty" of Wii deliveries, although obviously not in the sort of numbers needed to satisfy the voracious demand. We were informed, however, that all pre-orders have been filled.

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.