Analyst Claims Reduced Wii U Production Due to Fire, Nintendo Denies

While the Wii U will easily be one of the holiday season's hottest items, just this week the Wii U was the hottest it'll probably ever be—because a Wii U production facility caught fire. The result could be a reduced number of Wii U consoles available at launch, claims analyst David Gibson.

Gibson tweeted that Nintendo downgraded Wii U estimates by as much as 1 million Wii U units, down to 7.3 million estimated, due to the fire at the console assembler.

Nintendo, however, has told CVG in a statement that they forsee "no impacts" to their Wii U production pipeline.

Either way, the news of a fire at the facility, and an already limited supply of Wii U consoles available at launch, should drive up eBay prices even higher than already reported.

The Wii U will launch on November 18th in North America, November 30th in Europe, followed by a December 8th launch in Japan. With only 7.3 million Wii U consoles estimated, Nintendo is going to have a difficult time supplying all three regions with enough consoles to meet the demand of the holiday season. If you haven't pre-ordered a Wii U by now, you may be out of luck until 2013.

[Via]