The video game industry is exploding. It seems that more and more people are jumping into the gaming lifestyle and investing in consoles that bring a whole new world of entertainment into their homes. It is estimated that 2007 video game console sales brought in around $480 million. The Nintendo Wii alone accounts for a large percentage of that number.
However, Nintendo Wii availability has been spotty and unpredictable in many cases since its release. At some points, Nintendo Wii availability has been so poor that the waiting list was several months long. Needless to say, eager gamers are not happy about this.
Since its release, Nintendo Wii availability has been notoriously low around the holiday season. If someone on your holiday list was counting on getting a Wii for the holidays, they were very likely to be disappointed. Nintendo has gone to great lengths to meet the demand for the console, but in many cases they simply underestimated the overwhelming need of some gamers to own this innovative machine.
Some parts of the world were hit harder by the lack of Nintendo Wii availability than others. Shops in the United Kingdom, for example, had a particularly hard time stocking the console since its release. As of the beginning of 2008, Nintendo Wii availability in the UK has been increasing. It's now possible to walk into a shop and walk out with a new Wii, whereas that has not been the case for most of the time since the console's initial release.
Deceptive Marketing and Controversial Sales Tactics
Early on in the Wii's retail availability, some retailers were accused of using dishonest and deceptive tactics to sell more units. Armed with the knowledge that Nintendo Wii availability was notoriously lacking, some retailers decided to use the old "this is the last one we have" trick to convince customers to make a snap decision and purchase the console then and there rather than thinking about it first.
Still other retailers were accused of overstating their inventory and guaranteeing Nintendo Wii availability by a certain date. These retailers landed in serious hot water when their promised units were not delivered by the dates they had committed to.
The very low initial Nintendo Wii availability also opened many customers up to heartbreaking scams. On several occasions, hustlers sold a Nintendo Wii on an online auction site or through a dedicated website. The eager customer paid up - often paying more than retail price in order to get their hands on the hard-to-get console - only to be swindled out of their money by receiving a Wii box full of bricks.
Luckily, since Nintendo Wii availability is increasingly better around the world, such disastrous buying experiences have become rare. With any luck, Nintendo Wii availability will continue to improve and there will no longer be a wait for this fantastic console, no matter what country you are in or what time of year it happens to be.
