George Harrison Talks Why You Can’t Get a Wii

Hearing about Wiis being out of stock is about as common of a news story in the gaming world as there has ever been; everywhere you turn – and now more than ever, with the holidays coming up, there are reports about how difficult it is to find a Wii. Wired recently spoke with Nintendo’s senior VP, George Harrison, and he asked the question – just why is it so difficult to find the Wii?

Production currently stands at about 1.8 million units a month, which is nearly double what was being produced previously. About a third of those make it to North America, but they never seem to be readily available. Nintendo has stood by its assessment that it’s not creating a shortage of Wiis intentionally. Reggie Fils-Aime recently echoed that sentiment, which has persistently been what Nintendo has stood by.

“Although we’ve made efforts over the year to increase the monthly production rate, we haven’t been able to catch up with demand,” said Harrison.

“Typically, we’d have begun stockpiling console hardware back in August” for the holiday season, Harrison explained. “But this year, we were selling all the Wii we could get, and we got all the way through the summer with basically no inventory in our warehouse.”

He doesn’t really do much to ease worries, as it doesn’t sound like Nintendo has any intention of jacking up the supply any further. Harrison offered one piece of advice which is, sadly, probably your best bet for landing a Wii right now.

“I don’t want to say, ‘Stalk the UPS driver,’ but figure out when the shipments are arriving in the store.”