Jacob Mazel

In a piece on Fortune’s Techland Blog , Nintendo officials say they expect Wii hardware shipments to be up 50% from October to December 2007.

Through the quarter ending December 31, 2007 Nintendo had shipped 8.85m Wiis to the Americas. As of September 31, 2007 Nintendo had only shipped a total of 5.46m Wiis in the Americas. That means Nintendo shipped 3.39m Wiis between October 1 and December 31 2007 to the Americas.

Vgchartz data shows Nintendo selling 3.37m Wiis in that time for the Americas which suggests the new shipments were selling out almost instantly, and that some inventory had been built by retailers in the ‘low’ sales months earlier in the year.

Why is this significant?

It is significant because Nintendo has gone on record saying that Wii shipments will be increased by 50% over October to December 2007 levels in October to December 2008. In theory, that means sales of five million Wiis – or more – is possible over three months in the Americas. PS2 had a similar figure in its peak three month period, October to December 2002 – but that was after a price cut to $200. NES sold 9m units in 1989 in the USA market – at a time when sales were even more Christmas oriented, so it may have had a comparable peak holiday, as a monopoly, to what Wii will do this year. DS had a similar three month period in October to December 2007 – and may top that peak slightly in 2008 – but DS is clearly in its peak phase in the Americas.

Wii probably isn’t in its peak year though. There will be at least one more big push with Motion Plus and ‘core’ games like Mad World, The Conduit, Punch Out rounding out whatever ‘non-core’ games Nintendo puts out in 2009.

No videogame machine in three months has ever sold 5m in the Americas at $250. So Wii will likely have the all time revenue record from hardware sales this quarter - and each machine will be profitable at a healthy margin. The amazing part to all of this is that 5m for the Americas is probably no where near enough. Historically, selling ~600,000 in October in the Americas (which may be conservative given October 2007 sales were 600,000 and since 2008 will see better sales) would mean 1.5m in November and at least 3m in December if stock is ample. To actually meet Wii demand for the Americas, something like 750,000/1,850,000/3,850,000 is probably necessary for October, November and December.    

Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com