Wayne D's Blog

A few weeks ago I thought it would be a good idea to buy the kids a Wii. I haven't been paying much attention to what has been going on in the video game world since the hype of last winter when the PS3 was released. I quickly found out that the Wii is pretty much unavailable even though it's been 6 months since the product launched. One Walmart I was in even had cardboard taped over the Wii display case probably so shoppers wouldn't bother to ask the staff if they had any Wii's. The same Walmart did has PS3's available. I can understand there being some product shortages around launch time but six months later? I checked a few Wii listing in the Facebook marketplace and people are selling used Wii's for almost $200 above the retail price. Talking to a few of my friends I found out that if you want a Wii you have to call around to stores, find out when the 2-6 units they get each week come in and then hustle on down there on the appointed time and day and buy one. I don't want a Wii that much. Doing a bit of browsing around the web revealed that Xbox 360's weren't readily available until a year after launch. Can't these companies properly plan product launches? What's the point of releasing a product that people can't buy? The buzz on the Wii has been good but a non-gamer is not going to act like a fanboy. Looks like Nintendo has dropped the ball on this one. Good idea, terrible execution.