RicaneliteWii Shortages Not Intentional, Says Nintendo
We see a lot of back-and-forth between the hardware execs., but it's not often one of them butts heads with a major retailer. Nevertheless, you'd expect Nintendo to respond to accusations from GameStop COO Dan DeMatteo that their shortage of Wii systems was an intentional move. Next Generation pulled a counter from Nintendo senior VP of marketing and corporate communication, George Harrison.
Harrison explained Wii shortages were due to the need to spread available units out amongst all three major video game markets -- North America, Europe and Japan. It doesn't help that the Wii happens to be performing very well in each of these areas: "We have worldwide territories that are all competing over the available production. The Japan and European markets are doing extremely well with the Wii. People in Japan at NCL [Nintendo Co. Ltd.] are making the best decisions that they can about which products get shipped to which market and when."
Is Harrison angry at DeMatteo for the false accusations? Nah. He chalks it up to GameStop's way of asking for more units.
