GameStop on Wii’s intentional shortage and PS3’s not so great launch

Retail chain GameStop this morning had its quarterly conference call and companies Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony were somehow included in the discussion. Before we go to the interesting part, let us tell you first that the retail chain performed pretty well last year as it generated more than US$ 5.3 billion for the fiscal year of 2006.

Anyway, during the question and answer portion of the meeting, COO Dan DeMatteo mentioned that there’s a perfectly good explanation for the the current Wii supply shortage. The number of limited units are rather scarce, DeMatteo explained, because Nintendo intended it to be so.

“I don’t think Wii supply is going to be an issue going forward, and it’s just my opinion, I think Nintendo intentionally dried up their supply because they made their numbers for the year. Nintendo’s new year starts April 1st, and I think we’re going to see supply flowing. We were concerned about the dryness of Wii inventory in March, but it looks like April is going to be good,” further discussed the official.

CEO R. Richard Fontaine was then asked by Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian about their take on the PlayStation 3 (PS3) PAL launch. The official claimed that the launch was not that good, as reported by their European counterpart. Fontaine admitted, “I think the summary of that was that it was a very good launch falling somewhat short of what GameStop’s Euro managing directors would call a great launch.”

After that, DeMatteo shared that Nintendo DS Lite was able to sell 5 million units in U.S. alone, prompting the official to call the handheld “phenomenal.” The PlayStation Portable (PSP), on the other hand, is pretty much doing good as well with a total number of over 3 million units sold. He added that the much awaited Gran Turismo for the handheld might appear this year.

Lastly, the official somewhat placed his faith on Xbox 360 as he mentioned that the console will see continued growth this year, with around 4 to 5 million new users “jumping in.” Currently, the installed user base of 360 in U.S. is at 5 million.

Via Next-Gen

Retail chain GameStop this morning had its quarterly conference call and companies Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony were somehow included in the discussion. Before we go to the interesting part, let us tell you first that the retail chain performed pretty well last year as it generated more than US$ 5.3 billion for the fiscal year of 2006.

Anyway, during the question and answer portion of the meeting, COO Dan DeMatteo mentioned that there’s a perfectly good explanation for the the current Wii supply shortage. The number of limited units are rather scarce, DeMatteo explained, because Nintendo intended it to be so.

“I don’t think Wii supply is going to be an issue going forward, and it’s just my opinion, I think Nintendo intentionally dried up their supply because they made their numbers for the year. Nintendo’s new year starts April 1st, and I think we’re going to see supply flowing. We were concerned about the dryness of Wii inventory in March, but it looks like April is going to be good,” further discussed the official.

CEO R. Richard Fontaine was then asked by Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian about their take on the PlayStation 3 (PS3) PAL launch. The official claimed that the launch was not that good, as reported by their European counterpart. Fontaine admitted, “I think the summary of that was that it was a very good launch falling somewhat short of what GameStop’s Euro managing directors would call a great launch.”

After that, DeMatteo shared that Nintendo DS Lite was able to sell 5 million units in U.S. alone, prompting the official to call the handheld “phenomenal.” The PlayStation Portable (PSP), on the other hand, is pretty much doing good as well with a total number of over 3 million units sold. He added that the much awaited Gran Turismo for the handheld might appear this year.

Lastly, the official somewhat placed his faith on Xbox 360 as he mentioned that the console will see continued growth this year, with around 4 to 5 million new users “jumping in.” Currently, the installed user base of 360 in U.S. is at 5 million.

Via Next-Gen