A Year Later, the Same Scene: Long Lines for the Elusive Wii
Hundreds of people hoping to buy a Nintendo Wii lined up Thursday at the Nintendo World store in Manhattan.
SAN FRANCISCO — Linda Beattie is trying desperately to pay Nintendo $250, but the company is not cooperating.
Multimedia
Dorothy Ayer plays with a Wii at the Westfield Mall in Arcadia, Calif. The Wii has attracted a broad, unconventional audience.
Two weeks ago, Ms. Beattie went to a video game retailer in the Bay Area in search of a Wii, Nintendo’s intensely popular video game machine. She timed her visit to correspond with the arrival of a U.P.S. truck that she had heard would be making its regular stop at the store, hoping it might deliver some consoles. She was out of luck.
So Ms. Beattie, 44, a permit expediter and not a stalker by trade, followed the truck to the next store, where it did drop off a handful of Wiis. She bought one, but store policy would not let her buy a second for a friend, so she quickly called him.
“He came from another game store that he was staking out,” Ms. Beattie said. “He got there two minutes too late to buy the last one.”
Shoppers across the country have similar stories. With the Wii, Nintendo has created a phenomenon that recalls crazes of Christmases past: Cabbage Patch dolls, Furby, Tickle Me Elmo. But in this case it is happening for a second consecutive holiday season. Nintendo has been unable to keep up with demand, costing it hundreds of millions of dollars in potential sales.
The Wii, with an unusual remote control that players wave to manipulate action on the screen, has attracted a broad, unconventional following — from young children to mothers and even the elderly. It has put to shame the frenzy over another much-hyped gadget, the iPhone, which prompted long lines at its debut in June but was readily available on store shelves the next day.
The demand for the console has prompted creative buying strategies, early-morning camp outs and recrimination against Nintendo for failing to produce enough machines a full year after the product’s release.
Jim Silver, editor in chief of Toy Wishes magazine and an industry analyst for 24 years, said it was unusual for an in-demand product to remain so hard to find for so long. The must-have toys of other holiday seasons, like Furby, stayed popular into a second year but became easily available.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Mr. Silver said. “By a year later with hot items, inventory usually catches up.”
The Wii is more expensive than those other toys — $250 — and is attracting not just eager-to-please parents but also adults like Ms. Beattie who want it just for themselves. “I know 6-year-olds that love it and 50-year-olds that love it,” Mr. Silver said.
The unsated demand is costing Nintendo more than face. Estimates from industry analysts and retailers indicate that the company, which is based in Kyoto, Japan, is giving up $1 billion or more in sales in the ever-important holiday retail season, not including sales of games for those unbuilt consoles.
“It’s staggering,” said James Lin, senior analyst at the MDB Capital Group in Santa Monica, Calif., who estimates that Nintendo is leaving $1.3 billion on the table. “They could easily sell double what they’re selling.”
Between the Wii’s debut last November and this Sept. 30, Nintendo sold 13.1 million consoles. It ships 1.8 million a month worldwide — a third of those to North America — up from one million a month earlier this year.
When it comes to its planning, Nintendo says it has not done anything wrong.
“We don’t feel like we’ve made any mistakes,” said George Harrison, senior vice president for marketing at Nintendo of America.
He said there was a shortage because the company must plan its production schedule five months ahead, and projecting future demand is difficult. He added that there had been a worldwide shortage of disk drives that had hurt Nintendo as well as makers of many other devices.
“It’s a good problem to have,” Mr. Harrison said of the demand, but he acknowledged that there could be a downside. “We do worry about not satisfying consumers and that they will drift to a competitor’s system.”
At least one of those competitors is pleased with Nintendo’s supply problems.
“I’m happy that the Wii seems to be running out of hardware,” Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony, said at a news conference in Tokyo this week. He noted that in November, the PlayStation 3 from Sony outsold the Wii in Japan for the first time.
Sony and Microsoft, which sells the Xbox 360, have both been caught off guard by the popularity of Nintendo’s console, which is less powerful and complex than their machines. The Sony and Microsoft consoles are widely available, while buyers tend to wipe out supplies of the Wii in a hurry.
Nintendo sold 981,000 Wiis in the United States in November, its best month yet, while Microsoft sold 770,000 Xbox 360s, and Sony sold 466,000 PlayStation 3 consoles, the market research firm NPD Group said Thursday.
At the Nintendo World store in Manhattan, which receives daily shipments, shoppers line up on the sidewalk every morning for their shot at buying a Wii. There is a vibrant secondary market, with scalpers reselling consoles in store parking lots and online.
And while some people say they will keep searching for a Wii, others are giving up.
“I’m frustrated and I’m not going to try anymore,” said Betty Sapien, a San Francisco homemaker, who recently visited a handful of stores, including Best Buy and GameStop, to buy a system for her 9-year-old daughter. “They should have it well supplied. They know it’s going to be a big Christmas present, and it’s been a year” since it went on sale, she said.
Another shopper, Yvette Marchand, a Bay Area elementary school teacher, said, “I’m not proud of this, spending two hours running from store to store.” She spoke as she was standing last week outside of a GameStop. She said she had been to several stores, like Best Buy, where she arrived at 7 a.m. on a Sunday — too late to get a console, because others had lined up at 5 a.m.
“I’ve also been to Target,” she said, but when she asked for a Wii, she felt like the employees were mocking her. “I’ve received the smirks and the laughs.”
The GameStop chain, which accounts for around 23 percent of video game sales in the United States, said it could double or triple its Wii sales if the shelves in its 3,800 North American stores were fully stocked.
Bob McKenzie, senior vice president for merchandising at GameStop, said the company had stopped telling its stores when to expect their weekly Wii shipments. When word gets out about a delivery date, he said, “then people start doing crazy things, like putting up pup tents.”
In front of some retailers like Best Buy, where people have lined up to buy a Wii, the lucky few who manage to get one offer to resell them at a premium to those too far back in the line.
Colin Sebastian, an industry analyst with Lazard Capital Markets, said that on eBay, around 86,000 had been offered for sale since Dec. 4, with the average selling price about $320, 28 percent higher than the retail price.
Industry analysts suspect that Nintendo is intentionally keeping the supply low to maintain a buzz. If so, they say, the company risks permanently losing customers, because gift givers might not buy a machine in the new year.
“Nintendo is afraid that if it makes too many Wii, the boom may crest too quickly,” said Masayuki Otani, an analyst at Maruwa Securities in Tokyo. “It doesn’t want to satisfy all demand right away.”
But working in Nintendo’s favor is the fact that it has succeeded in further broadening a video game market that had already begun to expand beyond teenage boys and 20-something men.
Ms. Beattie, the truck chaser, said she and her friends, all in or near their 40s, have made the Wii a central part of their social time.
“We used to play poker,” she said. “Now we have Wii parties.” Because she’s self-employed, Ms. Beattie has continued to hunt for Wiis for her friends who have less flexibility at work: “They can’t leave their job when the U.P.S. truck comes.”
無視Wii缺貨導致消費者抓狂 任天堂到底在想什麼？
上網時間 : 2007年12月17日任天堂有Wii遊戲機這樣一個非常熱門的產品，但也似乎在其成長最快的北美市場與消費大眾設立了非常惡劣的關係。
不過任天堂日本總部的高官們，對於這樣的情況似乎毫不在意。種種跡象顯示，他們要不是被Wii的巨大成功而沖昏了頭，因而對缺貨問題導致消費者的不滿置若罔聞；就是認為消費者的不滿，與在耶誕假期前保持消費者的高度興趣相較，根本就不算什麼。而且任天堂還想避免因存庫過多而帶來的麻煩。
隨著年終假期的日益接近，美國卻有成千上萬四處購買Wii的消費者一無所獲，甚至已經無數次在零售商店門口排過長隊。這些痛苦的經歷讓很多消費者不僅對任天堂抱怨連連，甚至也遷怒Best Buy等電子產品零售商。
而很多沮喪的消費者和遊戲玩家都在部落格中流傳著一種陰謀論，關於任天堂及其經銷商的討論也充斥網路。這些都是讓公關專家們擔心的元素。
www.wiichat.com上的一位網友猜測：「由於任天堂的合約規定限制，美國的零售商只會在周日銷售Wii，直到把庫存的產品賣完。因為該合約規定不能累積庫存。他們希望每週都能製造一些噱頭，讓更多人走進他們的商店。」
不僅是部落客和陰謀論者認為，任天堂在故意製造Wii供貨短缺的局面——雖然這是該公司不斷否認的——連那些長期研究視訊遊戲機市場的分析師，都搞不懂Wii嚴重缺貨的原因，尤其是任天堂早在今年年初就已經發現Wii供不應求了。
要剖析問題的根源是很困難的，我們也難確定向來擔心庫存過多會導致其破產的任天堂，是否有意控制產量，使之保持在其高層所說的每月最高180萬台以內。
任天堂總裁Satoru Iwata在討論該公司截至9月30日前6個月的經營狀況時表示：「現在我們正面臨著年底銷售旺季，也是一年中需求最高的時期，所以為了供應盡可能多的Wii遊戲機，我們一直在努力提高產量。」
Iwata表示：「目前我們的每月最大產量為180萬台，而這個水準將被長期保持下去。」
消費者心願難了
而對那些期盼任天堂產量大幅提高的消費者來說，一點也不會希望這一點成為事實。產業分析人士認為，任天堂將保持目前這一產量來避免市場泛濫，因為市場泛濫不僅會造成需求下降、產品價格下跌，還會導致旺季結束時累積大量庫存。
此外，透過將供應量保持穩定，且稍高於實際需求，任天堂可以保住消費者對Wii的巨大興趣，輕鬆售出所有的產品。
Multimedia Intelligence策略和業務開發總監Rick Sizemore表示：「我看不到任何造成Wii供貨短缺的實質性原因。從我了解的資訊來看，任天堂好像在故意控制供應量，來吊消費者的胃口、拉高市場需 求。其底線是：控制供貨，而需求保持高水準。這樣也避免了成本貶值。」
迄今為止，任天堂從未擔心需要降低Wii價格來提高銷量。為了因應競爭，Wii的價格本來就已經打了折扣。例如微軟(Microsoft)的Xbox360零售價最低為280美元，而新力(Sony)的PS3售價更高達399美元。這兩家公司都已經降過價了，而Wii自從2006年底上市以來就一直保持在250美元。
Nintendo的Iwata說：「在美國，對於Wii的需求一直高於供應。這也是為什麼PS3在7月降價，Xbox360在8月降價；而《Halo 3》遊戲的發表，也對Wii銷售量沒有任何影響的原因。」
如果任天堂關注消費者的憤怒，就不會讓該公司高層出來回應關於其操縱供貨量的譴責。任天堂踢開這些抱怨的目的，是為了確立一個穩定的供需策略。這個策略已經幫助該公司避免了去年庫存過多的發生，儘管今年2月其銷售量曾有過短暫的下降。
Iwata表示：「由於中國春節假期的原因，2月份Wii的產量下降了，因而導致供貨量的縮減，造成銷售量的下跌。除此之外，Wii一直維持著穩定的銷售數字。」
確實，Wii在北美的穩定銷售量，使任天堂在截至9月30日的上半財務年度營收，成長了133%，達到63億美元(6,948億日元)，遠 高於去年同期的27億美元。在同一時期，其北美市場的銷售額成長了188%，從去年同期的3.501億美元成長到24億美元。有了這樣傲人的業績，任天堂 才敢對少數不滿的消費者抱怨不屑一顧。
(參考原文： Nintendo unfazed by Wii flak)
(Bolaji Ojo)
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