Ben points out that it’s been a long time since my last entry. Fortunately, I had an experience yesterday that is relevant to his recent article about the supply and demand of the Nintendo Wii.

I was in a Wal-Mart when an associate came on the public address system and said, “We now have the Nintendo Wii in stock.” I wasn’t interested in buying a Wii myself, but I headed for Electronics anyway because I was curious. I hadn’t actually seen Wiis for sale before, and I wondered if a mob would form and start fighting over them.

What I actually saw was rather anticlimactic. There were indeed some Wii packages visible behind the glass of the game-console display case, and a woman in that aisle had one in her cart. No other customers were there. I shrugged and went back to my shopping. When I was ready to check out, I swung by Electronics again just to see if anything had changed. The Wiis were gone, but when I asked an associate how many the store had received that day, she said “Four”. So it’s not surprising that they sold out quickly.

So that’s my firsthand experience with Wii demand: enough to make them disappear in short order, but not enough to draw a crowd.