Nintendo increased it's production capacity this year to allow for 50% more Wii's to be made this "holiday season" (whatever that is) vs. the 2007 "holiday season" when they sold 2.85 million Wii's meaning that they plan to sell beyond the 4.275 million that they are making for 2008's holiday shopping season. That will put them at about 40 million Wii's sold since it came out. I don't care who you are, that is a LOT of units to make.
By comparison, the PS3 by the end of 2008 should have total hardware sales of just under 20 million units, and the XBox 360, which has been out a year longer than both the Wii and the PS3, should hit almost 26 million units sold.
I agree and think that Nintendo could ramp up production even more though. They have cranked out enough DS units to hit close to 90 million by the end of 2008. I think that the real issue is that they are making a reported $6 per console and don't want to do with Microsoft and Sony (by a lot more) did and set themselves up to lose money with each sale of hardware.
From a business point of view, making $6 a piece and selling a product that doesn't stay on shelves very long due to demand seems like a better model then losing a lot of money for a product that is in demand but not selling as well just to keep a (shrinking) share of the market.
I'm telling you, if someone really wants a Wii, you can get them fairly easily and for regular price, not some jacked up price on eBay, just about anywhere in the country.
I agree with what your saying about taking a loss on the console but of the "big three" ( no not that big three ;)) Nintendo own almost if not all of their biggest and best selling games. So they would have more to gain if they have more consoles out there.
