It's hard to find a Wii video game console anywhere. In fact, some analysts say that supplies of the console won't meet demand until 2009. So when Nintendo said today that it missed its sales goal for the Wii, all signs point to a problem on the production side.
The company, whose North American headquarters are in Redmond, sold 5.84 million Wii systems in its fiscal year ending March 31. It had planned to sell 6 million -- a milestone that was reportedly hit in April. For the next fiscal year, Nintendo said it expects to sell 14 million Wiis.
The real bright spot for the company is still the handheld DS player. Sales of 23 million DS players was a major factor in Nintendo reporting record sales and profits today for the year. And Nintendo doesn't expect DS sales to slow much, forecasting 22 million in unit sales for the next year.
Nintendo today reported sales of about $8.1 billion for the year and operating profits of $1.9 billion. That's an increase of 90 percent and 150 percent over the previous year.