Kris Graft sat down with Nintendo of America’s outgoing George Harrison to discuss Nintendo DS and Wii performance in response to the October NPD report. During the talk, some interesting information about the Wii’s production numbers came up.
Graft: As Christmas approaches, what kind of output is Nintendo expecting as far as production of hardware? How many Wiis are we going to be seeing at retail in November and December?
Harrison: I can’t give an exact number for November and December. We had to make our final decision on how much to produce each month for the holidays back in the summer. It takes about five months for us to increase the actual monthly rate of production. We’re at a rate now worldwide of about 1.8 million Wiis produced every month, and that’s going to sustain itself until we get on top of this. We’re trying to make decisions on almost a weekly basis about which market to ship the product to, because in Japan it’s a big success, and same in Europe.
1.8 million? Across four major regions each month? No wonder the Wii can’t get over the 600k mark here in the West.
