Portable Planet

There’s going to be more stock of Nintendo Wii than the company has ever had for a console, and yet Nintendo UK boss David Yarnton still acknowledges that there will “most definitely” be shortages. You might want to go pre-order a Wii before you finish reading this.

In a recent interview with Eurogamer as reported by gamesindustry.biz, the Nintendo exec was surprisingly candid.

“We’ve sold close to six million units of DS hardware since launch and four million Nintendogs, so Europe is a very important market for our company and growing,” said Yarnton.

“[With Wii] we’re looking at about four million units before the end of the year globally and Europe will get a reasonable proportion of that,” he continued.

“The stock that we’re looking to get we believe will probably be more than we’ve ever had for any console launch. But from the feedback we’ve had from our retailers, whatever we have won’t be enough as the demand from people is really heating up for it.”

When directly asked if that translates into shortages, he replied: “Most definitely. I think if we could produce 20 million it wouldn’t be enough on a global basis because it’s really something that’s going to appeal to people who are not gamers as well. We’re expanding the market so there’s going to be a lot of demand from people who wouldn’t normally be buying videogames.”

Looks like it may be a cold winter for some people craving Wii this holiday season.