Wall Street Journal explains psychology behind Wii shortage

With the current demand for the Nintendo Wii exceeding the supply, Wall Street Journal writer and Wii shortage theorist”>Yukari Iwatane Kane and Nick Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal have theorized that the supply problem and the alleged hype strategy behind it may somehow be related to Nintendo’s tendency toward conservatism and caution.

More about Kane’s and Wingfield’s theory after the jump!

With the current demand for the Nintendo Wii exceeding the supply, Wall Street Journal writer and Wii shortage theorist”>Yukari Iwatane Kane and Nick Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal have theorized that the supply problem and the alleged hype strategy behind it may somehow be related to Nintendo’s tendency toward conservatism and caution.

According to Kane and Wingfield, Nintendo’s focus on cashflow may be leading the company to try to keep its inventories as low as possible, in spite of  Nintendo’s earlier announcement regarding increasing the supply of Wiis in order to meet the holiday demand.

Given a choice between flooding the market with unsold Wiis and erring on the side of shortage, Kane and Wingfield explained that it seems Nintendo prefers to deal with the lesser of two evils by maintaining the Wii demand and the hype generated by the shortage, rather than facing the negative consequences of excessive supply.

Regardless of whether that is actually the case or not, hopeful Nintendo Wii buyers will also be dealing with a Catch-22 of their own: having to shell out an exorbitant amount of money for a Wii or facing the prospect of a Wii-less Christmas.