"They are. I mean they are making their decisions now about what's going to happen for the holidays of 2007. So they're working very hard to prepare additional products and to add some unique features. As each one sees what the other publisher does, they start to get a little competitive about trying to add new uses of the Wii remote to their own games."
To some extent...Nintendo itself was caught off guard by the demand for the Wii console. Their scarcity in stores is leaving many would be buyers frustrated. About when the shortage will ease, Harrison says...
"Well we increased the production, worldwide production, starting in April. So more product is flowing in during the month of May and also in June. But what we don't know really is what the total demand is. So we're going to be shipping an increased quantity of product, we just don't know when we're going to get caught up." Is there one particular component? Or what's the big issue here? "Well there are some components that take longer than others to make. And for some of the suppliers we have to make almost a year long commitment. Because they don't want to have sort of uneven production, whether it's for the disk drives or other types of things."
Nintendo's dilemma is it doesn't want to make more Wii machines than there is demand for. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.