PRINTWii want fitness
But Wii need help finding it
Courtesy of Nintendo
The balance board that comes with Wii Fit is used in all four of the game’s routines: yoga, balance games, strength training and aerobics.
June 19, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
If you’re familiar with the long lines and scavenger hunts associated with the past holiday season’s Wii shortage, chances are you’ve considered trying out the addicting Wii Fit exercise program. For customers, however, especially those in North America, actually finding the game could be half the workout.
As popular as Wii Fit is, Columbia retailers say the difficulty in tracking it down can be attributed to more than just the game’s immense popularity.
“Obviously, with Nintendo they ship worldwide,” says Allen Wilkinson, manager of GameCrazy, “and I’ve read that the weakening dollar leads to fewer profits in North America. With exchange rates the way they are, they can obviously make more money over in Europe.”
In a May 31 Los Angeles Times article, Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, estimated that Nintendo shipped just 500,000 copies of the game to North America but as many as two million units to Europe.
For the uninitiated, Wii Fit is a video game with a mission: to help players shed pounds by leading them through fitness exercises such as yoga and jogging in place. Mini-games that, for example, instruct players to lean side-to-side to catch rings on their Mii characters, aim to make getting fit fun. The game also includes fitness tests that measure endurance and assess balance.
With a retail cost of $90, the game includes an innovative balance board, which serves as the controller and measures changes in the user’s weight distribution to determine whether the exercise technique is on target.
Retailers are quick to offer advice on how to find stores with Wii Fit in stock.
“Call around,” says Adam Garnett, a shift manager at GameCrazy. “At the very least, it’ll save you some gas. Retailers won’t lie to you; they’ll let you know if they have them or know when they’re going to get them.”
Garnett says the best way to get a highly sought-after game or console is to add your name to a store’s wish list. When they get the game in stock, they’ll call to let you know it’s available, then hold it for up to a day. He says his store normally reserves the wish list for games that are more rare than popular but, due to the circumstance, he thought GameCrazy would make an exception for Wii Fit.
“A lot of people probably learned their lesson from the Wii,” says Wilkinson, who owns Wii Fit himself. “They’re used to shortages and having to pre-order things. Everyone I know that has gotten a hold of one got it through our store by pre-ordering it.” He decided to take advantage of his store’s service because of the demand he anticipated.
Game City also allows customers to reserve the next available copy by putting down a deposit. “There’s a lot of frustration voiced by customers with Nintendo,” says Ray Maltbie, owner of Game City. “They just don’t understand why this is happening.”
Although larger retailers’ shipments often follow a tight routine and arrive on the same day each week, employees of smaller stores say that predicting shipping schedules is mostly guesswork.
“Usually our games come in on Fridays,” Sam Ott of Slackers CD’s and Games says. “Or, we could get them on Wednesdays or Thursdays. It’s pretty unpredictable.”
