Why the Mario Kart Wii shortages?

When Mario Kart Wii came out we were going on vacation and couldn't afford to grab a copy. Bad move! Just like the Wii itself, the game has been tough to find after the initial release. I'm not sure why-- it's just a disc and a wheel. Before the Wii we had trouble buying the Mario DDR game, and we heard it was because of quality control issues. I applaud Nintendo's efforts, but the Kart shortages don't make sense.

So the other day I was delighted to find my wife happened upon a nice lady at Target who said she had just opened a box of games and there was ONE copy of Kart inside. Just one? What in the world?

Anyway, once I took a look at the wheel it made a little more sense. The wheel isn't like the Monster 4x4 wheel (from Ubisoft), which is just a plastic shell. The Kart wheel has a better gripping system (the 4x4 wheel tends to gunk up the IR transmitter). The Kart wheel also has a hole for the IR transmitter, plus a special button to activate the B-button on the underside of the remote. That has a purpose in the game, but I'll cover that later in a more in-depth review.