Officially, Nintendo has gone on record as saying that they wanted to ship four million Wii consoles worldwide by the end of the calendar year, and two million more by the end of their fiscal year in March 2007 (as previously reported). We've also learned that the company is looking to provide at least one million systems for North America when the Wii launch arrives on November 19 of this year. That's a decent amount of hardware to come to market with on opening day, especially considering Xbox 360 and PS3 launch quantities.

Nintendo's current shipment estimates may be just the tip of the iceberg. According to Alex Gauna and Steven Chin, both analysts for investment firm UBS, Nintendo has already completed production on two million Wii consoles, and may have the capacity to build between seven to nine million more by the end of the calendar year--up to eleven million in total. That's over twice the as many consoles Nintendo is aiming for.

If this turns out to be true, i's almost assured that everyone in the world that wants a Wii this year won't have too much difficulty finding one. Of course, we'll have to see if Nintendo can actually sell those consoles at the same pace they are being constructed.

We will find out in six more weeks.