[UPDATED: Nintendo sent us the following statement regarding the Wii stock situation this Christmas:
"We are doing everything we can to ensure we are producing as many consoles and as much software as possible in the run up to Christmas. As such we have increased production of Wii from 1.8 million units a month to 2.4 million a month to cope with increased demand."]
According to a number of leading UK games retailers, it should prove to be much easier to find a Nintendo Wii this coming Christmas, unlike the past two Christmases when the consoles were harder to find than Osama Bin Laden.
TechRadar polled a number of our games industry sales and retail contacts today. Regarding the Wii stock situation for Xmas '08, the good news is that those in the know seem to be pretty upbeat.
Our contacts suggest that Wiis should be in plentiful stock throughout the Christmas season.
"Retail is actively looking for bundle stock for Wii," one third-party publisher informed us, "which indicates pretty strongly to us that there will be more than enough stock for Christmas."
No US shortages
This follows news from the US earlier this week, when Gamestop's VP of Merchandising Bob McKenzie told MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo that the Wii supply situation would be "much, much better than it has been the last two years."
"I can't say we will be in stock every day throughout the holiday season," he added, "but I can tell you that the current flow we've seen coming from Nintendo on Wii hardware makes us very confident that we will meet the business model that we've got."
TechRadar awaits feedback from Nintendo and a number of other publishing and retail contacts so stay tuned throughout the day for updates.
