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Wii Repeats As Holiday Must-Have

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By PETER SVENSSON, The Associated Press

Published: November 21, 2007

NEW YORK - Each holiday season, a couple of hard-to-find toys send parents hunting from store to store. And each season, they're soon forgotten: Has your Elmo gotten any tickles lately?

But this year, it looks like the gift everybody is looking for is the same as last year: the Nintendo Wii.

A year after its launch, the small video game console sells out almost immediately when it reaches stores, even after Nintendo Co. has ramped up production several times.

"Right now, if you work at it, it's not too hard," said John Lawrence, of Fort Worth, Texas, who bought a Wii a few weeks ago for his 9-year-old grandson. It took him some online sleuthing to find one at a local GameStop.

"People have not gotten into the Christmas shopping mode," Lawrence said. "Once people get into that mind-set, this is going to be an impossibility as it was last year."

With the Wii, Nintendo set out to make a console that would entice people who were not hard-core gamers, and it has succeeded. Janet Presti stood in line an hour at the Nintendo World Store in New York last week to get a Wii for her three children, but it wasn't just for them.

"I played it at my sister's house, and I loved it," she said. Her household already has three game consoles: a Microsoft Xbox 360, a Sony PlayStation 2 and a Nintendo GameCube.

The Wii responds to the user moving the wandlike wireless controller, while other consoles are controlled by a confusing array of buttons and joysticks. It also comes with an array of casual, nonviolent games that appeal to adults.

Sony and Microsoft have cut the prices of their consoles this fall, but demand for the Wii has meant Nintendo hasn't had to.

Perrin Kaplan, vice president of marketing and corporate affairs at Nintendo of America, said the console was "priced right from the beginning." A look at eBay shows that Kaplan may be wrong: New Wii systems are selling about $100 above the $250 store price.

Some of the demand for the Wii results from trouble in the toy industry, as well as the gadget's cross-generational appeal.

"No one is buying toys right now because of the recalls," said Gerrick Johnson, a toy industry analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

First, toys were recalled because of lead paint and dangerous magnets. Then, Aqua Dots - colored beads that were making their way to must-have status - were pulled because they were coated with a chemical that turned into the date-rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate if swallowed.

"It's really unfortunate for the toy industry because the lead issue was starting to subside, was getting off the front page ... and then along comes this, which is totally outrageous," Johnson said.

"Whoever thought that there'd be a day when parents say 'Don't play with your dangerous toys; go play with your video games'?" he said.

Nintendo acknowledges that it won't be able to satisfy holiday-season demand.

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