Is the PS3 shortage an opportunity for Wii?
By all accounts getting your hands on a PS3 in North America has been quite difficult, and here’s the reason why. While Sony orginally planned to ship 300,000 to 400,000 PS3s during the launch weekend, according to statements by American Technology Research, Sony actually shipped somewhere between 125,000 and 175,000 units. It’s unlikely that Sony will meet its 2006 (calender year) North American/Japanese target of 2 million units.
On the other hand, American Technology Research stated that Nintendo shipped between 425k to 475k Wii units to North America for its launch, and is on track to ship between 1.5 to 2 million units to the North American before the end of 2006.
What this means that if you want to buy a games console during the holiday season, you’ve got a far better chance of picking up a Wii than than you do a PS3.
Given that product availability can play a role in deciding who wins this round of theconsole war, the production planners at the Sony must really be feeling the heat. It is surprising that a company of Sony’s stature couldn’t get its supply chain working efficiently enough to meet its own initial production targets.
Maybe this hick up for Sony will encourage more consumers to give the Wii a go, and that might just be the break that the Wii needs to establish itself in North America.
