Wii Availability

Many people believed that the WIi availability would be high for the Nintendo Wii over the Thanksgiving holiday week. It turns out they were right, but there were purchased so quickly that there are STILL no Wii availability now. It turns out that Nintendo sold 350k Nintendo Wiis during the Thanksgiving holidays, which is a huge number. You have to keep in mind that this is only for the United States.

Wii availability in other parts of the world are still next to nothing. The UK has it the worst where you have to spend over $650 US dollars to buy a Nintendo Wii. In the US, there is still Wii availability on eBay, but prices have jumped from $300 to $500 for some of the basic bundle listings. These are incredible numbers.

The lesson here is that the Wii availabilty problems are going nowhere and prices will keep rising until about the middle of December where the peak shopping season happens. The best advice is to purchase one immediately while there is still an opportunity to buy it for a reasonable price. Paying $1000s may just be a little too much.

It turns out that Virtual Console has been doing quite well for Nintendo since its release. If you don't know, Virtual Console lets you download old console games and play them on your Nintendo Wii. There is nothing like playing Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros 3 on your Nintendo Wii. The games are available for less than 10 dollars each which is a great deal for the convenience.

The latest statistics show that Nintendo has made over $33 million from selling Virtual Console games. This is a good sign for the service and for Nintendo and its partners. We should be seeing more downloadable games like Virtual Console in the future if the pace keeps up.

It turns people are using Nintendo WIi more than some people have claimed. Now the only is figuring Wii availability so you can buy one.

It was an interesting month for Japanese video game sales because the PS3 has finally out sold the Nintendo Wii. This is in stark contrast to America and the UK where the Nintendo Wii is no where to be found and is selling like free gold.

Sony did well thanks to their new 40GB model for the PS3 which includes a game as well. The top selling video consoles are the PSP and PS3, which is good news for Sony after being in the gutter for so long.

If the Japanese aren't buying the Nintendo Wii as much. Does that mean they have a bunch of extra Nintendo Wiis sitting around? Why can't they send that over to American and the UK. We need some badly!

Japan has a club for people who buy Nintendo products consistently. You get points for buying any Nintendo product. You can then get cool prizes and cash for certain amount of points. The last prize was a unviersal TV remote that looked ike the Nintendo Wii remote.

The gift this year will be a Super Famicon controller for the Nintendo Wii. This is actually a pretty cool prize because it will only be available for the Club Nintendo owners. It will make playing those SNES virtual console games much more fun.

Some of the other prizes include a Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack and 2008 calenders for the table. Club members have up to Dec 2 to make their decision.

Nintendo had promised us we'd be seeing DVD playing Nintendo Wiis this year, but it looks like they are turning back on that offer. The issue is that the Nintendo Wii is so hot right now that they can't afford to slow down the production process just to add DVD playing capability. This is unfortunate because I would be glad to throw away my old DVD player.

Another reason they stated was that the royalties for DVD players is still high. They still need to pay the people own the DVD patent. Many people will upset these holidays, but at least there will be more Wiis on store shelves. However, how would we know if we never see one ever! :)

Guitar Hero III has been just taking over the Nintendo Wii world. People have been jamming to Raining Blood and One all night and day. Amazon sold out very early on preorders and it is very difficult to find Guitar Hero III right now anywhere. Another great feature is that you can play online.

The only mode has brought 622,580 connections over the Wii's Wi-Fi connect service for the week. It actually ending up beating Diamond and Pearl Pokemon (1.4+ million connections).

This is a very impressive start for Guitar Hero III. I have a feel that the Wii availability won't be as bad as the Wii Guitar Hero III availability. Get one if you can find one!

Super Mario Galaxy has already been released in Japan and has sold 130,000 on the first day. Many people were surprised that people weren't lining up outside for this game. A lot of bloggers just noticed the launch was quiet. It was nothing like Halo 3 being launched.

But with such a quiet marketing approach, Super Mario Galaxy is still doing well by seling 130,000. Mario games are known to keep selling throughout the lifespan of the Nintendo system. Maybe they hope that gamers review the game and then the masses will follow. I think that's what they are thinking.

Nintendo now has a new marketing chief and they stole her from a pretty big company, Yahoo. Her name is Camie Dunaway and she now responsible for selling Nintendo products to us. I have to say her job won't be that hard for a little while because the Wii and the DS seem to sell by themselves.

Nintendo has over a 80 million dollar marketing budget, which she will be controlling. Here's some background of her. She used to work for Yahoo and Frito Lay.

She is known for doing some crazy things like building a giant purple brain at New York's Times Square. This was for Yahoo! Answers. Well I hope she enjoys her new position and I hope Nintendo does even better now!