Thursday, December 4 12:00 AM ET

Chilling Secret Behind Nintendo Wii Shortage Revealed

Tokyo, Japan – It's rare for a game console to be in short supply for two Christmas seasons in a row, but once again the Nintendo Wii is the hot item shoppers are scrambling to get. Many expected Nintendo to be able to manufacture enough Wii consoles to keep the supply chain filled this year, but stores are still running short.

A recently obtained internal document explains the chilling reason behind the shortage.

The internal memo mistakenly sent to a press mailing list by Nintendo's head of manufacturing revealed that each Wii console was infused with the soul of a happy child. Here is an excerpt from the memo:

As you know the process for harvesting souls from children to infuse into each unit is a time-consuming process. The added burden of finding happy children in a worldwide economic downturn has also slowed the process. Since the souls are the secret ingredient which gives the console its competitive “fun factor” advantage, we cannot afford to bypass this process.

Reporters have since learned that souls are harvested from children using a patented “Soul Suckmote” in factories located in remote locales in Vietnam, Chile and Canada then shipped by tanker to Wii manufacturing facilities in Japan and elsewhere.

Nintendo held a press conference to address some of the issues raised by the internal memo. In response to calls that this violates Nintendo's ban against using child labor, spokesperson Aikido Wantanbe said, “The children are being used as a raw material like steel and plastic. You wouldn't say plastic was doing work in a factory now would you? No, because that would be ridiculous.”

Watanbe scoffed at reports that this shocking revelation would hurt sales of the console. “Americans trampled a guy at Wal-Mart for $25 off a GPS unit, and you think they're going to care about the souls of children in foreign countries?”

Nintendo's stock was up on the news.