But is meeting demand 100% always the best goal to have? An increase in production is an increase in cost. Spending $10 million to sell 1 million units over 2 months is better than spending $20 million to sell 1 million units one month and 500k units the next.
Without knowing the actual costs, it's impossible to answer. Usually consumer electronics get cheaper when you make more of them.
I would have bought one if not two (for a gift) if they were available. Now I'm not buying any. They not only lose out on the unit sale, but all subsequent accessory and software sales. So even if making an extra 500k per month cost them marginally, they have 500k more possible sales for all their Wii software and accessories.
I don't really care that much, it's just the first time I can remember this happening in CE. Companies usually wake up and fix supply issues. Nintendo of America is as confused as I am:
Perhaps Nintendo believes that if people think the Wii is cheap but scarce, then they will be more likely to buy at the earliest opportunity -- unlike the PS3 or 360, which can be picked up at any time?
Maybe it's something else then. Perhaps Europe are more likely to use the online capability or buy the download games or something... Or perhaps there's some US boycott going on by Nintendo?
The demand curve is the same as the marginal benefit curve and the supply curve is the same as the marginal cost curve. You produce at the equilibrium in this type of market since it produces the best result for both the company and society. This is introductory microeconomics.
It's probably a bad thing that I know so little about economics that I can't say for sure if you are disagreeing or agreeing with me. I'm leaning towards disagreeing, but I'll have to remedy that knowledge gap sometime this weekend.
