7-9 Million Wiis by 2007?

Gamespot is reporting that Nintendo's production of the Wii is actually going better than expected. Analyst firm UBS is now estimating that 7-9 Million Wii units should be off the production lines by 2007. From the article: "Citing industry 'checks,' UBS analysts Alex Gauna and Steven Chin claim that Nintendo already made 2 million Wiis by the end of September. They go on to predict that, 'at least 7 million and potentially as high as 9 million more units are in the build plan for Q4 06. This production ramp handily exceeds a publicly announced target for 6 million units to ship by year's end.'"

Smart move

[jacks smirking reven]

With that many units on the shelf they have more then cover the holiday buyig system, and enough left on the shelves for the post holiday market. Lines up very nicely with a price drop in the late spring summer time frame. Its almost creepy how everything Sony has gotten wrong (supply, timing, innovation, buzz) Nintendo has gotten dead on right this time around.

I think Sony & MS have jumped the gun too earl

[rolfwind]

It seems they went in and produced HD capable consoles one generation too early, the increase in price seems to be giving Nintendo a big boost come launch time. I only hope the actual launch lives up to the speculation.

Nintendo won't have to live up to the graphic expectations of Sony, Xbox, but for that, the gameplay will have higher expectations.

This is of course good for the average consumer, because, by the merits of mass production, HD capable consoles will be the minimum/default the next generation, and it might even boost HD TV sales more than they are, and drive down the price in that area by the time the next console wars come.

Re:Smart move

[Kemanorel]

Interesting parallel you just brought to mind for me... NES, SNES, N64. Third console for Nintendo, the beginning of their decline in dominance. PS1, PS2, PS3. Third console, underwhelming response from potential customers, possible (probable?) decline in dominance. Is this the console equivalent of the sophomore curse that many bands run into?

Re:what if problems arise?

[Wdomburg]

I expect heat won't be an issue since they're specifically designing for low power consumption.

For the most part, I don't forsee too many issues. The chips are derivitives of a proven design manufactured using mature technology at a quality fab plant (IBM's fishkill facility). Most of the other components are off the shelf - Broadcom ethernet and bluetooth chips, MoSys SRAM, etc.