(Thought I'd post this here.  It was a comment I made in one of the news articles).

I can't believe there are still people complaining about the production rate of Wii consoles.

First off, that they are producing as many as they are is more than can be expected of Microsoft and Sony.  Microsoft only had shortages as long as they did because they jumped the gun, thus having very few systems to begin with (which in turn created quite a market for e-Bay resellers).  Demand for the 360 was respectable, but hardly fever-pitch.  The PS3 had a similar situation, except they didn't jump the gun.  As far as I can tell, Sony has produced PS3s faster than Microsoft's 360s (month by month from launch).  However, the PS3 closed its demand threshold pretty quickly, thus making it relatively easy to find after December.

The Wii, on the other, has been cranked out at a higher rate (bearing in mind they did a same week global launch), and the only thing really keeping it from having constant on-shelf units is demand.  Obviously you can bring in rate of production into this equation due to the fact that it has bearing.  BUT if Nintendo was rolling out these systems at the rate Sony and Microsoft were rolling out theirs, they would crumble under the pressure and probably never meet demand.

Second, demand itself comes into this equation, but in a different way.  You all remember the Gamecube, right?  Surely not a financial failure, but its sales were considered disappointing.  Clearly, the Gamecube generation was where Nintendo got into discussions and asked themselves, "How can we come back in the console business?"  The answer they came up with is clearly the Wii.  However, the entire idea behind the idea was murky to begin with.  The control scheme was new and the idea of not giving it the same increase in graphics power that the rest of the competition did goes against every paradigm known to the gaming industry.

Did it pay off?  Oh snap did it ever!  While it's still not certain how much of this is truly due to their concept of "aiming for the casual gamer market," the point is something about the combination of features in the Wii struck a high note among many, yet they had no way of knowing if this gamble would pay off.

Now, I'm not knowledgeable enough in the game industry to know what is required cost-wise and money-wise to ramp up production, but remember that Nintendo's only business is games.  Even with their massive success with the Wii and DS, they can't throw money every direction like Microsoft and Sony can, and there are very few big electronics businesses that have such a narrow focus.  Furthermore, they have to remain profitable.  Thus, I can only imagine the process of getting additional factories ready to produce more systems is a lot more problematic for Nintendo than the other companies.  Heck, Iwata's statement didn't promise much more than a small increase in production.

So to all of you bashing the production rate of Wii's, all I can say is the fact that they're rolling out systems faster than their competition is amazing in and of itself.  Give them a break!  You'll find a Wii soon enough.