How did you get your Wii?

[Felon]

These are places you can use:

http://www.itrackr.com/
http://www.nowinstock.net/

I didn't end up using one of those. Off an internet tip (can't recall from where), I found out that Circuit City & Best Buy get their shipments on Sunday morning, of all times. I wasn't going to pay a premium or bust my back to get one so I figured I'd give CC a call at opening time the next week.

They had 3 in stock. 20 minutes later, I had one. The problem in January of last year was finding Wiimotes.

Thanks, John. Checking Nowinstock.net paints a pretty grim picture.

I have some difficulties with travel these days, so being able to order online is a pretty big deal. I think it's the eBay gougers who gobble them all up, since they obviously would prefer large quantities to be delivered to their front door.

 

[John Crichton]

Thanks, John. Checking Nowinstock.net paints a pretty grim picture.

Yeah, although they are pretty prompt with emails for things that come back in stock. And it's free which is great.

I have some difficulties with travel these days, so being able to order online is a pretty big deal. I think it's the eBay gougers who gobble them all up, since they obviously would prefer large quantities to be delivered to their front door.

Ah, I wish you luck, sir. I imagine these things should be easier to find as the year grinds on.

 

[KB9JMQ]

We put one on reserve two weeks before we bought it at Game Stop in November.
This past weekend I was in Game Stop looking for some games and they had 2 sitting there and Wal-Mart had 2 also.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

My friends camped out in the cold waiting for their preorders.

I went to Best Buy the next day and bought one.

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

Family and I were sitting together at the Mall eating lunch in late August of last year. My son wanted one of these for a long time but he was settled on the fact that most likely the soonest he would get it would be sometime in 2008 because trying to get one was near impossible.

As we're eating he looks up and says, "Dad, that man has a Wii." About 30 yards away there was this man with an EB bag but I couldn't tell what he had in it. I asked my son, "How do you know?" He replied, "I can tell by the shape."

So I said, "Let's go!" and we almost ran to EB. They had one left and we got it.

And, oh, did he ever have to earn it.

 

[sckeener]

I had a friend that was going on a trip to the boonies...he was sad about it because he was going to spend two weeks there with nothing interesting to do....

then when he got there, he went to walmart and found gold...the wii on shelves.

He grabbed two

 

[gill_smoke]

My wife wanted to get one for Christmas, I walked into Best Buy in October and told her it was on the shelf, she said get it. I got it and they are still impossible to find 2 months after the holidays.

Anybody know why the rarity?

 

[Felon]

My wife wanted to get one for Christmas, I walked into Best Buy in October and told her it was on the shelf, she said get it. I got it and they are still impossible to find 2 months after the holidays.

Anybody know why the rarity?

Well, to put it simply, the rarity is due to a combination of high demand and low price.

Sony and Microsoft both focused their efforts on building boxes that would appeal to the uber-hardcore gamer with heavy-duty horsepower and graphics, and applied a MSRP of $500-$600.

Nintendo made a console that had a highly intuitive control system, gave it a less sticker-shocking price of $250, and managed to tap into a mainstream market of ordinary people that dwarfs the hardcore gamers by several orders of magnitude.

To many a non-gamer, an Xbox controller is like the hi-tech equivalent of a Chinese finger puzzle (two thumbsticks, a D-pad, four multi-colorred thumb buttons, right and left shoulder buttons, right and left trigger buttons, and as if that weren't enough, many games are even starting to incorporate the back and forward buttons that previously were just used to pause). OTOH, a three-year-old can pick up a Wii controller and start playing.

There's also something to be said for the games. Xbox and PS3 serve up a lot of grim, bloody first-person shooters. Wii games are generally sutiable for kids and parents, with a big party-game emphasis.

Video game consoles tend to be loss leaders. This is claimed not to be the case with the Wii, but I personally find that rather hard to believe. At any rate, Nintendo seems content to not ramp up the production of Wiii's.

 

[Asmor]

You forgot supply... I've heard (and please take this as the completely baseless rumor that it is) that there is a shortage of some chip required for the Wiis... Which, to be completely honest, doesn't make much sense to me since the Wii's not a particularly high-tech piece of equipment. I'd be less surprised if, say, the accelerometers used in the wiimotes were in short supply, but that's obviously not the case since they're easy enough to find now.

The main problem is that Nintendo simply isn't making enough of them. I don't know why, but my (once more, completely baseless) suspicion is that they don't want to overextend themselves. They don't have the same bottomless pockets as Microsoft and Sony, after all...

As for how I got mine... A few months after it came out (I wanna say the January after), I heard Best Buy was getting some in... So me and my friend (who already had one, but wanted another wiimote since they were still impossible to find) got there at 7 am, 3 hours before Best Buy opened. The line was already quite large, and I think we were in the mid 30s when they handed out tickets. There were easily several hundred people in line when the store opened.

If you're ever going to camp out for something like that, definitely don't go alone. It's nice have company, not to mention you can take turns going to the store or what not. I let my friend take my car to go back to my place and get some chairs from the patio.

 

[drothgery]

Sony and Microsoft both focused their efforts on building boxes that would appeal to the uber-hardcore gamer with heavy-duty horsepower and graphics, and applied a MSRP of $500-$600.

Err... at US launch the Xbox 360 was $299 (Core) or $399 (Premium/'standard'). This was pretty much in line with most other consoles. It was only the PS3 that was much more expensive than other mainstream consoles.

And I still think the multi-SKU madness was largely Sony's fault (and Ken Kutagi's in particular). If they hadn't been so insistant on the 'PS3 will be teh expensiv' line, I think there would have been a single 360 SKU for $349 (which would have been the 'premium'). But since they were, MS figured that they could make a play for the slightly more budget-concious with the $299 Core, and charge $399 for the 'real' version. And then Sony saw that multiple SKUs sort of worked, so we got $499 and $599 versions of the PS3.