If you tried to hunt down a Wii this holiday season there is a good chance that you walked away empty handed and with a pounding migraine. The Wii is essentially a money printing machine for both retailers and Nintendo, but a nightmare for consumers who were trying to find one for their kids.
Amazon just published a press release outlining some of the stats from the holiday season. The busiest day was on December 10th where 5.4 million items were ordered…that’s 62.5 items per second! And guess what, when they had Wii’s in stock those were flying off the shelves at an amazing 17 units per second. If you tried to call up one of your friends to let them know that Amazon had Wii’s in stock, about 250 of them would have been sold by the time you dialed and your friend answered. Every 5 minutes that they had Wii’s in stock equates to over 5,000 units. And you wonder why they were so darn hard to find!
Amazon posted a lot of other stats as well, but many of them were not all that interesting. One that did catch my attention was that they shipped 160,000 packages to APO/FPO addresses, which are army/military addresses.
Congrats to you if somehow you managed to snag a Wii this holiday season!
…….
If there are people around the North Carolina area looking for a brand new Wii, there are a few over at Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville, and guess what, no one is buying it, no lines to buy it, just sitting on the shelf. I would’ve bought it but I wasn’t carrying any cash or cards… And I don’t need one.
That is a lot of Wii sold for sure.
So does this mean Nintendo won in the console race for 2007? Maybe, that is if they are in the same race as Microsoft and Sony. 
I don’t really know the percentage of people that have a console in the U.S., but I’m sure there are still plenty who don’t own one. My parents never allowed a game console in the house when I was growing up, simply because they wanted us to stay active and play outside instead of staying inside all day in front of the TV. The Wii is definitely fun, but I think some people spend way too much time playing games. I guess what I’m getting at is that it may not be such a bad thing that you don’t have one…
when i went to buy my ps3 at best buy, i saw at least 3 people buying the wii. they were either little kids or parents with their little kids.
The wii’s a blast to play. You can get really into it and it’s quite a workout if you do. It could be the most fun I’ve had ever in my entire life.