Ok, so I’m a huge dork. This morning I waited in line to try to make a quick buck off the Nintendo Wii. As of now I have 3 Nintendo Wiis selling on Ebay and hopefully I at least make back my money that I spent. Either way, I definitely learned about making a huge business mistake. Sony Playstation 3 came out with all sorts of hype about their new game system last week and the press latched on to the conecpt of there being a major battle among Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft for the gaming market. As a result of the extreme shortage of Playstation 3s there was a huge unfulfilled demand (and justifiably some enormous prices paid on Ebay) for a new video game system. Two days later, Nintendo came a long and provided the solution with four times the supply and more to quickly follow.

I was amazed to see as many people as I did waiting for the Nintendo. Even though there were four times the supply of the Playstation release, each one of the stores I visited had sold out. We’ll see what the final result is after the holiday season … but it seems as though this initial win in terms of marketing strategy (and greater ability to meet demand) may give Nintedo a competitive advandtage. Additionally, Nintendo targeted a nice price point since the PS3 was steeply priced for the average gamer. With so much hype for such and expensive entertainment system, many consumers are going to be left purchasing the alternative XBox 360 and Nintedo Wii.