Nintendo: 4 Million Wii Consoles To Ship In 2006

Officials from Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo have confirmed that the company expects to ship approximately 4 million Wii consoles globally during the six weeks between the system's launch on November 19 in North America and the end of 2006. The company also noted that while the largest share of that worldwide allotment will go to the Americas, Nintendo expects supply will be outpaced by demand, based on retailer orders and consumer requests. Nintendo of America has previously indicated that it plans to ship six million units of the Wii console worldwide before the end of the fiscal year March 31st, 2007. Nintendo has also confirmed a substantial lineup of both first and third party software titles that will be available for the Wii within this six week North American window, including 32 full titles to debut before the end of the year from a number of major publishers, and 30 classic NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Genesis and TurboGrafx games for download on the Wii Virtual Console. According to Nintendo representatives, the company has also introduced a rapid replenishment program designed to keep Wii console manufacturing up with retailer demand, and that it has employed multiple fleets of land, air, and sea transportation in each global market to maintain the supply flow, starting in the Americas. "Wii is for both experienced and uninitiated gamers, and it will be available for the masses," says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. "Because of demand, we're urging shoppers not to get complacent. The level of demand we're seeing goes beyond the ordinary. Retailers are telling us a significant fraction of customers pre-ordering Wii are nontraditional gamers -- people looking for a better way to play. And that's exactly what Wii is designed to provide."