Wii 3

We have the third Wii in the family that I know about. While I like the game system and have enjoyed getting tips about game play from my grandson, I have to say that the Nintendo marketing is even better than the game.

The purchase experience is a sustained "almost out-of-reach" condition. They seem to be perpetually "out of stock" but "will arrive soon". Call back on Wednesday morning to see if any of the pre-ordered systems are unclaimed - get here an hour before the store opens on Sunday morning and wait in line for a coupon to buy a unit.

It is pure marketing genius - generate exactly the right degree of scarcity to maximize sales and completely eliminate any sales resistance or expectation that a "sale price" might happen. Encourage the purchase of any related parts, should they happen to be in stock, because you may not see them again. If they were readily available in the stores, they would not be so successful. The scarcity adds to the mystique.

And this, all for a video game system that has a novel user interface but is otherwise rather mundane (XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 have much more capable processors and graphics hardware etc.). Perhaps the other thing setting Wii apart from the others is that Wii seems to focus on "E" rated games rather than the shoot-em-up and bad behavior games.

Wii Fit may be available Wednesday (or perhaps on June 8Th).

The only other thing that was this hard to obtain was an EV1.

But I'm up to 3/160 on the Lego Star Wars game :-)