HMV on Wii allocation

It goes without saying that finding a Wii console during the holidays season was probably just as hard as stomaching a new album from Creed. Personal biases against the rock band aside, it also goes without saying that whenever a store had stocks of the said Nintendo console, then you can bet your bottomest dollar and a half that it sold out faster than Link becoming right-handed.

For a mega-store like HMV, it’s not surprising that console stocks didn’t last. Even though Nintendo UK collaborated with HMV during the console launch, you can’t expect to meet consumer demand with limited stock. A representative from HMV had this to say:

Games products, particularly from the new Wii range, proved to be among our strongest performing titles – which only served to underline our sense of frustration that we did not have more units of the Wii console to sell.

So, while they do acknowledge the Wii as their hottest product during Christmas, they still express their disappointment. Well, is anyone surprised? If you’ve got a product – any product – that sells like pancakes, then you’re really bound to hit the low-point of hanging that “Out of Stock” sign outside.

If there’s something positive that we can draw from this, then it’s more confirmation of how successful the Wii really is. Some people thought that it would sell OK, but as it turns out, it’s become more successful than a lot of us (maybe even HMV included) previously expected it to be.

It goes without saying that finding a Wii console during the holidays season was probably just as hard as stomaching a new album from Creed. Personal biases against the rock band aside, it also goes without saying that whenever a store had stocks of the said Nintendo console, then you can bet your bottomest dollar and a half that it sold out faster than Link becoming right-handed.

For a mega-store like HMV, it’s not surprising that console stocks didn’t last. Even though Nintendo UK collaborated with HMV during the console launch, you can’t expect to meet consumer demand with limited stock. A representative from HMV had this to say:

Games products, particularly from the new Wii range, proved to be among our strongest performing titles – which only served to underline our sense of frustration that we did not have more units of the Wii console to sell.

So, while they do acknowledge the Wii as their hottest product during Christmas, they still express their disappointment. Well, is anyone surprised? If you’ve got a product – any product – that sells like pancakes, then you’re really bound to hit the low-point of hanging that “Out of Stock” sign outside.

If there’s something positive that we can draw from this, then it’s more confirmation of how successful the Wii really is. Some people thought that it would sell OK, but as it turns out, it’s become more successful than a lot of us (maybe even HMV included) previously expected it to be.