2.4 million Wiis made a month

Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed that the company is producing 2.4 million new Wiis every month – a 33 per cent increase on last year’s frequency.

Speaking in an interview with the LA Times, Fils-Aime called the production cycle ‘unprecedented’.

Nintendo has continually raised the production levels of the Wii hardware,” he revealed. We’re now producing 2.4 million units a month worldwide. Last year, we made 1.6 million a month. So we’ve made a 33 per cent increase.

One of our competitors projects they will sell 10 million consoles worldwide this year. For us, that’s three months of production. We’re producing an unprecedented level of hardware to try to meet demand.”

Fils-Aime added that Nintendo hadn’t felt any negative impact” from the current global economic crisis.

However, he also admitted that one in three US retailers are out of Wii Fit stock.

At this point, only about three in ten stores will have Wii Fit in stock, he said.

We are dramatically increasing shipments of Wii Fit. We’ve sold somewhere around three million units. The demand has been so brisk that it has been difficult to catch up.

"The other challenge is that we’re seeing demand from a whole new market. Of the people who stood in line in New York, 60 per cent were working women. This is a demo that arguably has never bought a video game, and they’re buying it for themselves.”