Cool, thanks. Since I don’t get the newspaper, I really had no idea about the Sunday morning thing. See what I posted earlier about the two Best Buys and Target in my area.
As far as the bundles go, how do you know that they aren’t selling them in anticipation of getting machines in to bundle? It might take them a month to fulfill the order.
Like said, I got mine in the spring, and it wasn’t a matter of even looking. I wandered into a Best Buy one Tuesday afternoon after work, which I do every once in a while to look at the Tuesday DVD releases, and I was checking out the DS games when I noticed there were six or seven of the Wii’s sitting there. This other guy and I, who was standing right next to me, kind of looked at each other, and pretty much got the same idea at the same time. “Well, what the hell?” and we both shrugged and picked one up. Now, granted, when I went back the next day to start picking up all the extras, they were gone, but they’re out there in the wild. I’d say I see a stack of them at least once a month at local Targets, Wal-Marts, and Best Buys, but they’re always gone the next time I check, and I rarely, rarely go out on Sundays.
So, yeah, seriously. They get them when they get them.
I’d be curious how many people here, besides you, have been unable to find them despite active searching.
That doesn’t make any sense. Game systems are should to retailers for nearly MSRP (in this case probably $200+), who then turn around and sell them to the public for a few dollars more. It’s why you never see a sale on a game console unless it’s a price drop straight from the manufacturer.
If Wal-Mart wanted to make more money off the Wii they’d just drop the price of every Wii title $3 and advertise like crazy. Games have a good markup (around 25-50%), so Wal-Mart would still be making crazy profits and they would be making more money in volume.
Wait…
Wait just a damn minute!
Wal-Mart does do that! Every game they sell is sold for an uneven number (usually something like $48.84 when the MSRP is $49.99) and they sell more games than any other retailer.
When come back, bring stronger tin foil hat.
Are you like this in real life? Seriously.
That’s not really a convincing hypothesis, I’m afraid. Walmart will want to make sales by selling games as well, so just how do they benefit by holding back supplies of the consoles to their eager market? How does it explain that 10 million of the consoles have already shipped?
People are always telling me they think I have a winning personality and that I’m funny as hell. I must be doing something right.
Having played almost every version of the Godfather out there, what the Wii version lacks in graphics it totally dominates in controls. Metroid Prime 3 is even better.
I think it’s a matter of taste, though. Some people can’t handle the control scheme aesthetically. But then again, I know people who hated Metroid Prime on the 'Cube compared to, say, Gears of War or Rainbow Six–I can’t comprehend that mindset, but it is what it is.
I’ll be over here playing my Wii, at $250 for the console and $40-$50 a game, as opposed to the $400 and $60 per for the XBox 360 that I just can’t justify–if it’s not on the Wii and it IS on the 360, it’s almost always on the PC if I want to play it.
Just yesterday afternoon we were at target doing some last minute back to school shopping and noticed that they had 4 Wii consoles in stock. That’s the first time since release that I’ve seen them there. We’ve had our Wii since February when we happened to be at Toys R Us on a Sunday morning and saw a small line in the R zone I got in line while Mrs Probe looked at games. I was about 15th from the front but more than half the people weren’t even there for a Wii. I still haven’t finished Zelda, the last level gives me vertigo. So I guess what I’m saying is they’re out there you just have to know when to go and get it. Heck if I’d known you were still looking I would have picked one up for you. 
As one of the dumb ones who did buy a bundle, I just have to say that the bundles at the big box stores aren’t actually priced higher than the individual components. At the moment Gamestop has a Wii bundle for $349 that includes a nunchuk ($20), Wii Play (which comes with a remote) ($50), and an SD card ($30). The only problem with the bundles is including something you didn’t want to buy. In my case, I wanted the extra nunchuk and remote and the four games my bundle came with. The only thing I wouldn’t have purchased given an option was the SD card, but I was willing to shell out that extra money to get a Wii in February.
You’re whiny and fucking stupid to boot. This is the exact opposite of Walmarts business practice.
At least two of the posters in this thread work in the game industry, or a related field. I’d be a third. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Nintendo has absolutely no reason to throttle the number of consoles on the market, and has been doing everything humanly possible to make supply catch up with demand. The thing to remember about video consoles is that the real money is in the games, not the hardware, and you can’t sell games until people have something to play them on. Deliberatly restricting supply of new consoles would be New Coke-level marketing stupidity.
You went to three whole stores in fucking Herndon and you’re bitching? You could probably venture over to Tysons Corner and find as many places there as you’ve looked. Or freakin’ E-bay. Myabe you should just have a good cry and get it all out.
Count me as another who did this. Stopped by a Target at about 8:30 in the morning on the day before Memorial Day - no problem. They had something like five or six left. I recommended that strategy to a friend who did the same thing two weeks later at another store - success once again.