SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Nintendo of America held its Media Summit at the J.W. Marriott in downtown San Francisco today. Reggie Fils-Aime, president and COO of Nintendo, took some time to talk with GameDaily BIZ about the just-announced Nintendo DSi and explains why it should be easier to find a Wii this Christmas than last in this exclusive interview.

GameDaily BIZ: Next month marks the second anniversary of the Wii launch and yet the console is still very hard to find at retail. Why has it been hard for Nintendo to deliver enough Wiis to stores this far into the life cycle?

Reggie Fils-Aime: It's more of a demand issue than a supply issue. We've tracked the demand for the Wii against the current generation of consoles as well as the PlayStation 2 and the demand is unprecedented and continues to track ahead of anything we've seen in the game industry before. This holiday we'll be putting 50% more hardware in the market than we did last holiday and we're still not sure it will satiate the demand. We've increased our production multiple times since launching the Wii and we're currently building 2.4 million Wiis per month. At this point, we're hoping the demand will intersect with supply and allow for future activity and growth.

BIZ: Can you talk about the Wii consumer and how this audience has expanded beyond what this industry has seen before?

RF: The Wii business is based on the primary player and the secondary player. The primary player is the self-reported person in the home who owns the console. These active gamers are ages 15 to 25 and comprised heavily of males who are playing games a large number of hours every week. Where we've seen the most dramatic shift in the game industry is with the secondary player of the Wii. The majority of these players are over 35 and there's a large number of females in this category including girls, moms, and grandmothers. Many of these secondary gamers, including grandparents and parents, have never picked up a game controller before. They're picking up Wii controllers and becoming engaged with gaming. That's the data that we're seeing that has changed the gaming marketplace.

BIZ: How has this Wii audience compared to the Nintendo DS audience?

RF: We've seen similar mainstream expansion with the Nintendo DS market. With that device, the primary user is defined as being much broader and includes more females than the Wii.

BIZ: Since the new Nintendo DSi does not have the Game Boy Advance port, will gamers be able to play Activision's Guitar Hero On Tour?

RF: The Nintendo DSi will not support games like Guitar Hero On Tour that use the GBA slot. That said, Vicarious Visions has seen the new DSi and they're very excited about the possibilities the device offers.

BIZ: Do you see the DSi replacing the DS?

RF: I see the DSi and DS relationship being more like the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP. In Japan, both the DS and DSi will co-exist for some time moving forward. Once DSi comes to North America, we expect it to co-exist with the DS here, as well.

BIZ: With the music capabilities of the new Nintendo DSi has Nintendo thought about opening a music store like iTunes.com?

RF: We haven't thought about music yet, but I'll tell you we have no interest in getting into a red ocean battle with any competitor. AAC music downloads from your PC to your Nintendo DSi is nice, but what we think is more interesting is the ability to manipulate sound by controlling the pitch and speed of audio files. It's more interesting to use the DSi for bite size chunks of entertainment. We see the DSi as offering fun snack-sized music offerings.

BIZ: How do you see the new DSi's two cameras being incorporated into games?

RF: I'm not a game developer, but could I see gamers being able to take a picture of themselves and attaching it to a game character? Why not? With Grand Theft Auto on DS gamers will be able to create their own tattoos. It's not far-fetched to think that DSi gamers will be able to customize their characters with their own pictures.