The Sarcastic Gamer on Wii Shortages!

"Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime (pronounced 'full of crap') told us all recently that Nintendo would not be able to meet the demand for Wii consoles in North America for the holiday season this year.

Exsqueeze me? Baking Powder? Did you just tell us that you still haven't figured out how to tune your production process to meet demand after more than a year? Good one Reg! Wow, you had me for a second. So what you're really saying, is that with no really compelling reason to buy your little solar-powered calculator, you guys came up with this "artificial panic" idea.

What happened? Spend too much time trying to crack down on employee-bloggers, and forgot to turn on the factory? Is there a shortage of weak graphics cards? Was there a worldwide run on sucky processors?

At first dismissive of this as a terrible marketing ploy, I thought it through, despite the obvious waste of my precious (and few) brain synapses.

I decided, as most of you have already done, that Nintendo are trying to sustain the "Wii fad" by making it some sort of shopping trophy. As we all know, the idea is not without merit. But Reggie's approach is, how shall we say, just a TAD too obvious. Chances are, the folks who started THESE fads, were just a little more subtle in the "setup" phase. Remember these fads?

• Cabbage Patch Dolls - Christmas 1982 - Only slightly less technologically advanced than a Wii, the Cabbage Patch Dolls had soccer moms duking it out like Thursday Night RAW had come to Kmart.
  


• Tickle Me Elmo - Christmas 1996 - Same replay value as most Wii titles, but a whole lot cuter, Elmo's annoying little laugh is quite comparable to the tiny little dudes in the the Wii commercials.
  


• Pet Rock - Christmas 1975 - Only slightly less complicated to assemble than a Wii, the Pet Rock drew long lines of enthusiasts, who couldn't wait to teach their new pets how to "stay" and "sit".


• Macarena - I'll take half credit for this one since it isn't an actual product, but it does involve a fair amount of ridiculous gyration of one's body, not unlike the silly stuff you have to do to play Red Steel on the Wii.

So maybe this "shortage" of Nintendo Wii's this holiday season isn't without merit. Look on the bright side, at least if there are fewer people buying Wii's, maybe a few more people will pick up real gaming consoles like 360's or... even PS3's (I hear they have PLENTY of those in stock)."SarcasticGamer...

I have to agree with this. I'm kind of tired of Nintendo trumpeting how wonderful they are and they can't even produce enough of their wonderful systems to fill demand. Perhaps, folks will get tired of their crap and buy an XBOX 360.