With the advent of the festive season, many lucky people are scrambling to secure their own Nintendo Wii, and in the light of such demand a shortage has arised. However, Nintendo Australia’s managing director Rose Lappin has come out and made a statement on the matter, and cited her possible solutions too. Lappin states that Nintendo Australia would start to produce more units next year but she was not able to give specifics of the matter, such as how much more of an increase there would be. More inside Such details are apparently going to be finalised in a global meeting in Japan early next year. Lappin then went on to say that 20,000 consoles will be shipped to local retailers early next week, in order to help meet the Christmas demand, and this would be in addition to the 20,000 units that are currently in trade. A parallel can be drawn to the original launch of the Nintendo Wii last year, where Nintendo originally shipped 40,000 consoles and they all sold before Christmas arrived.

And it seems that Retailers are expecting a similar result this year, with EBGames managing director Steve Wilson saying that “”We’re anticipating that we’ll run out,”” and “”If it goes as hard as it should we should run out.””. Furthermore, Harvey Norman’s product manager for games and entertainment, previously boycotting the Gamecube, said that, “”If people put off getting their Nintendo gift until the last minute, it’s going to be very hard.””.

Lappin reassured that Nintendo would be receiving more stock in January and then at regular intervals after that.

And what does Lappin have to say about the Xbox 360 price drop? Now it is the same price as the Nintendo Wii, surely she should be worried? Well, Ms Lappin does not believe that the price drop would hurt sales.

Source: Australian IT