It’s been almost exactly one year now since the release of the Nintendo Wii and amazingly Nintendo is still not able to meet demand.

I was all revved up to get one on day one a year ago – but refused to wait in line – obviously it sold out, but I figured I’d just wait a week or so and more would be available – nope. Cut to a month later: after numerous calls to every store all around the city each week, there were still no Wiis available, a few would come in stock and sell out immediately, I couldn’t believe it. This ultimately led me to eBay where I got one at a nice little markup, but that turned out to be a very good move – as apparently you still cannot easily find them today a year later!

The BBC is reporting the Nintendo is warning of Wii shortages in the UK as consumers start their holiday shopping. Here in the U.S. all indications seem to be the same – I had a friend who just last week tried to get one (he’s been trying for months actually), and there were none anywhere to be found. It’s still sold out at Amazon, still sold out at Best Buy, still sold out at Target.

While it’s great that Nintendo has been so successful in the face of the bigger, stronger Xbox 360s and PS3s, I can’t help but wonder what in the hell Nintendo is doing/thinking in not being able to meet demand more than a year after launch! The company is making a ton of money (their market cap has long surpassed Sony’s in Japan) and yet they seemingly refuse to take the necessary steps to ramp up production.

Sure, keeping demand high is great, but this holiday season Nintendo could miss out on millions of dollars in potential sales because they haven’t been able to get their act together. When the market demands it, you make more.