Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime officially speaks out against Wii bundles. But is there anything Nintendo can do to prevent the practice?

Demand is high for the Nintendo Wii, it’s easily the hottest Christmas gift in the world. Since demand has made them scarce, some retailers are taking unfair advantage. Instead of just selling Nintendo Wii, many retailers are adding a bunch of extra merchandise and selling it all as a bundle.

Nintendo has officially condemned the practice because they believe it artificially jacks up the price, thus masking Wii’s cost advantage over the competition. But there isn’t much they can do about stock already in the hands of retailers.

If you’ve been around the block with game consoles you’ve seen the shady practice before. The usual suspect is Game Stop with its extravagant bundles. A couple of years ago, when Xbox 360 shortages were all the rage, Game Stop was actually dealing bundles priced at well over a $1,000 - that included game-console peripherals and an HDTV.

But now it seems everyone is getting in on the practice of retail bundles, even larger retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

In statements to the press recently, Fils-Aime said Nintendo wasn’t a fan of bundles. When asked if Nintendo could threaten retailers with fewer shipments, he responded that right now, Nintendo carries a lot of weight with retailers.

Fils-Aime’s statements are clearly an implied threat. To be sure, it sounds like Nintendo is telling retailers that they don’t want them packing the console into bundles.

Whether we see some action on the part of retailers before Christmas remains to be seen.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 11:57 am and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.