The holiday season is almost here, and we'll most likely see lots of console units and gaming software end up underneath the Christmas tree and in the Christmas socks of all good children. However, too much demand that outweighs the actual supply is always a bad thing.

Analyst Colin Sebastian from Lazard Capital Markets said that there will indeed be a general hardware shortage, not only for the Wii (as mentioned by Reggie Fils-Aime in his statement that there will be a Wii console shortage this holiday season). Explained Sebastian,

Holiday hardware demand may outstrip supplies. We believe one of the themes from the upcoming holiday period could be hardware supply constraints, driven by ongoing strong demand for Nintendo’s Wii and a shift in Xbox 360 unit sales from 4Q into the September quarter, while Sony’s PS3 and PSP may benefit from lower price points.