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[Sojiro]

Nintendo's fucking handling of the NES mini is infuriating. This thing would still be hard to find if they had an actual decent supply of it out there. Even though I still want one, the desire has definitely decreased since launch.

 

[Vlaphor]

Aww man, NBFM had some? I could've gotten one. You live in the KC area?

Topeka, (went to go see a movie at Cinetopia and then decided on the way there that I didn't want to see it after all) and yes, they did.

 

[LordofPwn]

Surprising number for December seeing how even Amazon.com didn't get any restock. They easily could have sold 3 times that number though.

 

[mr_nexus]

My nephew didn't get one for Christmas, that's all I know :/

Ditto, I tried desperately to find one for my nephew. I ended up giving him money in a card to buy it when became available. Nintendo really fucked up royal on this one.

 

[TheGreyHulk]

When the hell can we buy these for fucks sake. It's been forever already. They need to start helicopter dropping crates everywhere with em.

 

[Dominator]

Glad someone has a level-headed thought on the matter.

Don't think this matters at all, quite frankly. Its true, I don't care to track one of these things down cause its a complete pain in the ass after 2 and a half months for an item that should have been mass produced, way more than their initial allotment. Being near impossible to find after that amount of time for something that should have been a stocking stuffer and mass produced, is a problem.

It was a success and they sold through all of their initial batch, and thats good for Nintendo, but lets not pretend they couldn't have sold double of their day 1 allotment. Probably even more. I'm not clamoring for it anymore, but tons of people still are. Thats evident by how much these things still go for second hand.

I'm not asking for 5 million of these things to be produced and shoved out at once, but there should have been a steady pace every week of shipments through the holidays. Missed opportunity.

 

[Haunted]

Nintendo was as surprised by the success as we were.

Market research department probably isn't celebrating right now, that's a big whiff for them and they made Nintendo lose out on a ton of money.

 

[DavidDesu]

Wait until the SNES Classic comes out lol! If they keep the supply right that should easily sell millions in a holiday

I wasn't that keen on the NES but a SNES classic.. oh boy. That thing truly will be in huge demand whenever they make it. If they do the same thing again then Nintendo truly can go fuck themselves. That would easily sell millions and millions. They better produce a decent amount!

 

[AniHawk]

Nintendo was as surprised by the success as we were.

Market research department probably isn't celebrating right now, that's a big whiff for them and they made Nintendo lose out on a ton of money.

i mean all you can do is really see what the competition did and gauge response that way. by the time it turned into a holiday hit, it was too late to get more consoles in before the end of the christmas season.

 

[TransTrender]

This one time...a Target store in my state had one in stock for like 30 minutes and they were never seen again...

Also all this 'surprise demand' bullshit.
Google analytics and search data from the big retailers was a dead give away the demand was huge. When you constantly see the NES Classic at the top search for Best Buy, WalMart, Amazon, Target, GameStop, then you know demand is high.
They fundamentally didn't understand the demand and didn't have the manufacturing capacity to catch up. Their marketing team needs to be fired.

 

[Panajev2001a]

This actually shows part of the reason why Nintendo went conservative. Clearly there was a narrow window and if they over produced or had too many production lines going it would have cost them because consumers are obviously short attention spanned with this product. Could Nintendo have sold more? Yes. Could they also have lost more money? I think these types of posts also show yes.

True, they could have lost money or they could have started with preorders to judge demand and increased supply so that it likely would have been sold out or close to it by schist as/Boxing Day or so. Controlling production and stores supply is why there are people paid hundreds of base workers pay salaries in order to maximise profits for the company and IMHO they left money on the table.

Sure, the avoided big losses, but they also avoided making a lot more money... nothing people would or should get me bonuses for.

 

[Panajev2001a]

i mean all you can do is really see what the competition did and gauge response that way. by the time it turned into a holiday hit, it was too late to get more consoles in before the end of the christmas season.

That is assuming there was no way to try to predict/model demand before launch better...

 

[daxgame]

If I could have walked into a store and purchased this the week after it came out, I would have gotten it. Been too long now and I no longer care. Shame.

B but the artificial shortage strategy man! How are you NOT buying into the hype of not finding a product!

 

[Pandy]

Nintendo was as surprised by the success as we were.

Market research department probably isn't celebrating right now, that's a big whiff for them and they made Nintendo lose out on a ton of money.

It really is this. There have been a tonne of mini retro consoles on the market before the NES Mini, and none have performed anything close to it, even within enthusiast circles let alone with the general public.

I pre-ordered one as soon as I could, but I only saw hype increase more widely on GAF a couple of weeks before release, by which time it was way too late to adjust the stock numbers.

 

[AniHawk]

That is assuming there was no way to try to predict/model demand before launch better...

perhaps they had assumed that people were more or less set for the platform and didn't do followup closer to launch - or when they did, it was still too late. or maybe it wasn't too late and production did increase behind the scenes, but only to the levels we wound up seeing, in a sort of panzer dragoon saga kind of way.

or maybe they just flat-out wanted to sell a certain amount and not play with fire - make a goal and stick to it.

the conspiracy of artificial demand is nuts though. nintendo always has some sinister motive, even when they're finding a modicum of success.

 

[staticneuron]

Since you still haven't cited which regions those numbers are, I found them so I can correct you on your claims that Nintendo committed artificial scarcity with the Wii U.

The Wii U 400k initial shipment was for the US launch.

The 3.06 million Wii U units after 41 days was for worldwide.

If I remember correctly, Wii U had an early launch date in the US compared to the rest of the world. It launched on November 18th ahead of Black Friday to take advantage of Black Friday for the launch.

NPD figures cite 890k units sold in the US after 6 weeks, that tells me not many more shipped after the initial launch in the US.

Wii U launched in Japan on December 8th and sold 636k units in that month.

Source: http://m.ign.com/articles/2013/01/11/how-successful-was-the-wii-u-launch

Trying to mask that Nintendo shipped a little amount for an early US launch ahead of black Friday while it didn't increase dramatically after 6 weeks doesn't tell me that artificial scarcity occured, especially when you implied it as though 3.06 million units were shipped to the US after 41 days from an initial 400k.

Since you ignored the rest. let me make it concise for you.

The question then becomes, exactly how much units can the company produce a month. If they can in fact make and ship over 2 million after 30 days, why was the initial shipment only 400,000?

The total numbers are from Nintendo's own fiscal reports. The launches for the so called major regions are separated by 10-11 days per region. They launched in all regions inside of the 41 Days mentioned. If they can produce that much within a month why was the initial shipment in the US that low? Before you try to posit how much more important Japan is to the US please look at that fiscal report from Nintendo again and look at historical sales per region. Are you saying they didn't think of the black friday release before hand? What business doesn't think of these things? you make it seem like an afterthought.

the conspiracy of artificial demand is nuts though. nintendo always has some sinister motive, even when they're finding a modicum of success.

I don't think Nintendo did it with this particular hardware, it does seem like this is something they have done with Wii U and Switch. Maybe it is bad planning or underestimating demand. I don't think Nintendo is evil, just very cautious. I think they would stand to make more if the people could purchase their hardware even on impulse than to give them time to think of it while the product is out of stock.

 

[spineduke]

Well, they're either incompetent or attempting to game the market. Or both. What difference does it make?

 

[massoluk]

Well, they're either incompetent or attempting to game the market. Or both. What difference does it make?

One is unintentional, the other sounds extremely sinister

 

[gate stormer]

What's wrong with me GAF? Brickseek shows a target near me has 6. I'm lining up at the door at 6 am.

I've been wanting one a lot more after finding out you can load custom roms.

 

[ggx2ac]

Since you ignored the rest. let me make it concise for you.



The total numbers are from Nintendo's own fiscal reports. The launches for the so called major regions are separated by 10-11 days per region. They launched in all regions inside of the 41 Days mentioned. If they can produce that much within a month why was the initial shipment in the US that low? Before you try to posit how much more important Japan is to the US please look at that fiscal report from Nintendo again and look at historical sales per region. Are you saying they didn't think of the black friday release before hand? What business doesn't think of these things? you make it seem like an afterthought.

What the hell are you even talking about? I said they launched early in the US to take advantage of Black Friday, the fact that 400k only shipped at launch in the US meant not many were produced in the first place. That's why it wasn't a simultaneous release worldwide, it released end of November for Europe and not until 8th December for Japan. It was a staggered release for their new home console.

Why are you even pointing to worldwide sales when I just showed that US sales went from 400k to 890k total in six weeks? That's very similar to the NES classic here, it went from 196k to 420k sales total in a similar time frame seeing as NES classic came out in November 11th.

Why they were able to produce so many Wii U units worldwide was that they were expecting the Wii U to sell like the Wii and that backfired on them. They're obviously not producing NES Mini Classics in the same numbers as the Wii U because it is a $60 novelty item that you can't buy new games for. It's obvious as someone else stated that it was just a cash grab for the holidays.

This is why I mock the artificial scarcity posts, it sold the same in December as it did in November, people were expecting plentiful stock in December because Nintendo planned for it with their "Artificial Scarcity" but it's obvious that didn't happen. They never expected this item to sell so well, they only manufactured a low amount of units per day because they didn't expect this to be popular.

 

[RedAssedApe]

How many were scalped and resold to poor souls

 

[Dash_Riprock]

Well, they're either incompetent or attempting to game the market. Or both. What difference does it make?

After the Switch reveal, its clearly the former.

Anyway, is Brickseek reliable? Thinking about using it for this and maybe a couple other things I'm looking for at Target.

 

[BGBW]

Still don't understand why people think the short supply was some clever tactical move to drive up sales. If they had supply ready to roll out before Christmas I could see that, they sell out, demand goes up and then more appear in stores, but they basically sold out and nothing happened afterwards. They clearly just underestimated demand or just didn't want to have any risk of excess stock.

 

[Aostia]

if available it would have sold at least double quantities ww.
so this is the demonstration about the "fabricated shortages" being a meme

 

[ggx2ac]

Adding from my post #120

...

I can't believe I'm having to argue that the Wii U wasn't artificial scarcity.

Nintendo shipped Wii U units worldwide totals:

By December 31st 2012: 3.06 million
By March 31st 2013: 3.45 million
By June 30th 2013: 3.61 million
By September 30th 2013: 3.91 million
By December 31st 2013: 5.86 million

Source, sales section of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U

Look at that mess, they manufactured a lot of Wii U units because they thought it was going to be the next Wii and it backfired. Look how fast shipments dropped once it got to 2013.

And as I said before, Wii U had a staggered release worldwide, not simultaneous. That's why Wii U had only a 400k launch for the US early ahead of other regions to take advantage of Black Friday, by end of December it shipped 1.32 million total for the US but sold only 890k and by the end of March it shipped only 1.52 million. That is a huge drop, it only increased around 3x in shipments for December from November and then it dropped fast at the end of March because no one was buying any! An average of 70k units were shipped to the US from January to March.

Edit: Grabbed the wrong region numbers.

 

[staticneuron]

What the hell are you even talking about? I said they launched early in the US to take advantage of Black Friday, the fact that 400k only shipped at launch in the US meant not many were produced in the first place. That's why it wasn't a simultaneous release worldwide, it released end of November for Europe and not until 8th December for Japan. It was a staggered release for their new home console.

Why are you even pointing to worldwide sales when I just showed that US sales went from 400k to 890k total in six weeks? That's very similar to the NES classic here, it went from 196k to 420k sales total in a similar time frame seeing as NES classic came out in November 11th.

Why they were able to produce so many Wii U units worldwide was that they were expecting the Wii U to sell like the Wii and that backfired on them. They're obviously not producing NES Mini Classics in the same numbers as the Wii U because it is a $60 novelty item that you can't buy new games for. It's obvious as someone else stated that it was just a cash grab for the holidays.

This is why I mock the artificial scarcity posts, it sold the same in December as it did in November, people were expecting plentiful stock in December because Nintendo planned for it with their "Artificial Scarcity" but it's obvious that didn't happen. They never expected this item to sell so well, they only manufactured a low amount of units per day because they didn't expect this to be popular.

That is the point right there. If this was the plan they could have had more units ready for the sale. The Worldwide numbers give a clue to how many units the can make in 30 days and speaks to allocation. They manufacture a month in advance to initial release targets they would have made even more of a killing for black friday. Stating what they did 6 weeks after (a month and a half) doesn't disprove what they did with allocation and manufacturing. Unless you believe that they were making these products less than two weeks away from them hitting shelves, they either allocated and planned poorly (creating scarcity when they could have been more sales) by accident, or did it on purpose which is equally silly. The concept of launching early shouldn't even be an idea you are pushing. And the Wii U and this situation is not comparable I would think. Did they have pre-orders on gamestop? Money put down by customer to show clear intent over a query? I am not going to say this issue for NES mini was done on purpose, it is more illogical what went down on Wii U as an example.
Nintendo did expect the Wii U to sell.

Scott Moffitt: Yeah, it was. Mr. Iwata announced that we will be making and shipping 5.5 million units this fiscal year. That's a worldwide number. We haven't shared the breakout by region, but you're correct in saying that the US and Western Europe are the gaming markets that skews to home console gaming versus handheld gaming, whereas handheld games occupy more of a percentage of the total business in Japan; and so, we haven't given a specific breakout but I can tell you that certainly we've seen brisk pre-sales and that the phone calls have been coming into our headquarters for quite a while now asking for more and so we do expect high demand.

But I can tell you this - on opening week we will have more systems on hand for the Wii U than we did for the launch of Wii. And, second, our replenishments will be more frequent this holiday time than during the Wii launch.

Which by comparison they had 600,000 Wii units sold in the americas the first 8 days of sale. 400,000 Wii U units is behind what they estimated and that was the allocation.

EDIT: BTW I posted a link to their official report so the numbers aren't a mystery, what happened afterwards I am sure is in part to the launch. Perfect storm of the main casual audience not being aware Wii U was another console and the limited sales allocation giving time for parents and many others to choose the competition over the holidays. In addition to the heartless scalpers.

 

[old manatee]

I would have bought 3 before Christmas, but I couldn't find any so now I will buy zero.

 

[ggx2ac]

That is the point right there. If this was the plan they could have had more units ready for the sale. The Worldwide numbers give a clue to how many units the can make in 30 days and speaks to allocation. They manufacture a month in advance to initial release targets they would have made even more of a killing for black friday. Stating what they did 6 weeks after (a month and a half) doesn't disprove what they did with allocation and manufacturing. Unless you believe that they were making these products less than two weeks away from them hitting shelves, they either allocated and planned poorly (creating scarcity when they could have been more sales) by accident, or did it on purpose which is equally silly. The concept of launching early shouldn't even be an idea you are pushing. And the Wii U and this situation is not comparable I would think. Did they have pre-orders on gamestop? Money put down by customer to show clear intent over a query? I am not going to say this issue for NES mini was done on purpose, it is more illogical what went down on Wii U as an example.
Nintendo did expect the Wii U to sell.

Scott Moffitt: Yeah, it was. Mr. Iwata announced that we will be making and shipping 5.5 million units this fiscal year. That's a worldwide number. We haven't shared the breakout by region, but you're correct in saying that the US and Western Europe are the gaming markets that skews to home console gaming versus handheld gaming, whereas handheld games occupy more of a percentage of the total business in Japan; and so, we haven't given a specific breakout but I can tell you that certainly we've seen brisk pre-sales and that the phone calls have been coming into our headquarters for quite a while now asking for more and so we do expect high demand.

But I can tell you this - on opening week we will have more systems on hand for the Wii U than we did for the launch of Wii. And, second, our replenishments will be more frequent this holiday time than during the Wii launch.

Which by comparison they had 600,000 Wii units sold in the americas the first 8 days of sale. 400,000 Wii U units is behind what they estimated and that was the allocation.

EDIT: BTW I posted a link to their official report so the numbers aren't a mystery, what happened afterwards I am sure is in part to the launch. Perfect storm of the main casual audience not being aware Wii U was another console and the limited sales allocation giving time for parents and many others to choose the competition over the holidays. In addition to the heartless scalpers.

Well they definitely did get enough shipments by end of December which was 1.32 million even though only 890k units sold total during that time frame in the US.

However there's one little problem I'm noticing, what was the shipment numbers?

You're saying they sold 400k in their first week but was that the same as their shipment numbers?

Because I'm finding that they sold only 425k units for November.

NPD November 2005: 360 - 326K
NPD December 2005: 360 - 281K
NPD January 2006: 360 - 250K
NPD February 2006: 360 - 161K

NPD November 2006: PS3 - 197K
NPD December 2006: PS3 - 491K
NPD January 2007: PS3 - 244K
NPD February 2007: PS3 - 127K

NPD November 2012: Wii U - 425K
NPD December 2012: Wii U - 460K
NPD January 2013: Wii U - ~55K
NPD February 2013: Wii U - ~45K to ~60K based on current market conditions


What's your point? The 360 and PS3 had strong momentum. The momentum in Wii U is dead.

What I am seeing is, Wii U sold 400k in their first week and only 25k units more for the rest of November.

I can't find anything on what their launch shipment was, only their launch sales.

What that leads me to believe is that Scott Moffitt wasn't lying. They did probably ship more than 600k units for launch, but it wasn't selling as fast as the Wii did.

They ended up shipping 1.32 million total at the end of December to the US but only sold 890k.

I did try to find launch shipment numbers but I can't find it, I only see what was sold.

If anyone can find how many they shipped it would help if we were to supposedly expose that they did artificial scarcity with the Wii U at launch but as I pointed out. This 400k figure for launch week was only how much they sold, not how much they shipped.

 

[LordKano]

Thankfully I didn't want one, because the trainwreck to get one is laughable.

 

[shouamabane]

It's a really cool product. I hope we get more Classic consoles.

 

[Pandy]

I would have bought 3 before Christmas, but I couldn't find any so now I will buy zero.

Why not buy them for next Christmas?

We're talking about NES games, not the latest COD. They've already dated, another year or two isn't going to hurt.

Thankfully I didn't want one, because the trainwreck to get one is laughable.

I decided I wanted one shortly after the announcement. Pre-ordered it. It arrived in the post. Complete trainwreck.

 

[PSFan]

This holiday seemed like a very weird one for Nintendo hardware. Besides the NES Classic, the 3DS and other Nintendo products were all in short supply.

It's almost as if Nintendo decided to sit the holiday shopping season out this year and not bother at all.

 

[staticneuron]

Well they definitely did get enough shipments by end of December which was 1.32 million even though only 890k units sold total during that time frame in the US.

However there's one little problem I'm noticing, what was the shipment numbers?

You're saying they sold 400k in their first week but was that the same as their shipment numbers?

Because I'm finding that they sold only 425k units for November.



What I am seeing is, Wii U sold 400k in their first week and only 25k units more for the rest of November.

I can't find anything on what their launch shipment was, only their launch sales.

What that leads me to believe is that Scott Moffitt wasn't lying. They did probably ship more than 600k units for launch, but it wasn't selling that as fast as the Wii did.

They ended up shipping 1.32 million total at the end of December to the US but only sold 890k.

I did try to find launch shipment numbers but I can't find it, I only see what was sold.

If anyone can find how many they shipped it would help if we were to supposedly expose that they did artificial scarcity with the Wii U at launch but as I pointed out. This 400k figure for launch week was only how much they sold, not how much they shipped.

They sold out. 400k was the initial shipment.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=501437

The Wii U topped the Wii with 400,000 units sold. The Wii, which Nintendo launched all the way back in 2006, was able to muster 300,000 Wii sales during the last week.

"Wii U is essentially sold out of retail and we are doing our best to continually replenish stock," Fils-Aime said. "Retailers are also doing their best to get the product to store shelves. But as soon as product hits retail, they're selling out immediately.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-11-28-wii-u-shortage-helping-xbox-360-ps3

Nintendo effectively sold out the available Wii U units during the Black Friday week so it remains to be seen how many total units will be available at retail and will sell before the end of the year.

http://kotaku.com/5975869/how-gamestops-500000-wii-u-wait-list-number-became-320000-sales

"Our initial allocation from Nintendo was not 500,000 units," GameStop spokesperson Matt Hodges told Kotaku when asked about the apparent discrepancy. "We never disclosed that number; we only stated that we had reserved thru those units in the first 48 hours of them being offered. NPD reported sales of 463,000 Wii U units in the U.S. in December. That number added with those sold in November brings the LTD total to 888,000."

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=507807

Nintendo most likely knew they were in trouble by end of december and by fiscal had to lower projections.

 

[Ryne]

Heck, couldn't pre-order the thing at some locations. It was nuts.

If I remember correctly, BB and Gamestop didn't offer pre-orders at all. Finding one in Canada was especially difficult.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

This one time...a Target store in my state had one in stock for like 30 minutes and they were never seen again...

Also all this 'surprise demand' bullshit.
Google analytics and search data from the big retailers was a dead give away the demand was huge. When you constantly see the NES Classic at the top search for Best Buy, WalMart, Amazon, Target, GameStop, then you know demand is high.
They fundamentally didn't understand the demand and didn't have the manufacturing capacity to catch up. Their marketing team needs to be fired.

I've said this several times but the situation is not as simple as most people make it out to be. Nintendo does not own any of those retailers and at the end of the day the supply is decided by how many units retailer buyers commit too.

This is just consumer electronics retail 101.
It has been hard to find here in Japan, but not quite as impossible as the states. I am guessing the retailers here did a better job gauging demand.

My best guess is that most retail buyers were cold on the idea because of plug and play items haven't lit up the charts and Nintendo scaled back production to match their orders.

Not really sure why you want the heads of the marketing team. Everything kind of points to them knocking it out of the park otherwise demand wouldn't be this high.

 

[ggx2ac]

They sold out. 400k was the initial shipment.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=501437



http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-11-28-wii-u-shortage-helping-xbox-360-ps3



http://kotaku.com/5975869/how-gamestops-500000-wii-u-wait-list-number-became-320000-sales



http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=507807

Nintendo most likely knew they were in trouble by end of december and by fiscal had to lower projections.

I wouldn't use that kotaku link about GameStop. That is, assuming you were highlighting the 500,000 preorders from them.

What does matter is that GameStop says that those 500,000 people who they talked about in mid-November didn't actually put any money down for the system. They didn't really pre-order the Wii U the way so many customers plunk down five bucks at GameStop to pre-order a new game. Those 500,000 folks merely said they wanted a Wii U and hoped to get one from GameStop. "One thing to consider about the people who signed up for our waiting list is that they had no financial commitment to do so," Hodges said, "So it is possible that they purchased their Wii U from another retailer."

 

[spineduke]

I've said this several times but the situation is not as simple as most people make it out to be. Nintendo does not own any of those retailers and at the end of the day the supply is decided by how many units retailer buyers commit too.

Not really sure why you want the heads of the marketing team. Everything kind of points to them knocking it out of the park otherwise demand wouldn't be this high.

Some of the ancedotal stories from retail and management suggest otherwise. They (retail) didn't get what they asked for, simply put.

 

[Milly Osworth]

I just googled it because I want to get one for my parents. Sold out still, GG!

 

[Fahzgoolin]

I know it's a silly meme, but Nintendo really does seem to hate money.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

Some of the ancedotal stories from retail and management suggest otherwise. They (retail) didn't get what they asked for, simply put.

I don't put much weight in those anecdotes honestly. No actual high level executive at Gamestop is going to air that shit out online and these aren't decisions made at a regional level.

They could be true of course, but I don't believe most shit I read on the Internet. Especially a handful of accounts from a franchise with what... 4000+ stores across the country?

 

[staticneuron]

I wouldn't use that kotaku link about GameStop. That is, assuming you were highlighting the 500,000 preorders from them.

No, I quoted the pertinent part where they clearly stated what was not true to remove any confusion. I quoted it.
here it is again

"Our initial allocation from Nintendo was not 500,000 units," GameStop spokesperson Matt Hodges told Kotaku when asked about the apparent discrepancy.

 

[Trup1aya]

Are people really acting like they anticipated a NES "rerelease" to tear up the charts? I'm pretty sure even Nintendo thought it was just be popular among collectors and enthusiasts. Hopefully in the coming months they react to the apparent demand

The should have anticipated it being an impulse buy for stocking stuffers.

I haven't owned a Nintendo product since the n64, and i would have bought four or five for sure.

The funny thing is, Reggie blamed the miscalculation on current Nintendo enthusiasts buying more than they anticipated- completely ignoring that massive number people enthusiast or not, who would be moved by the nostalgia and no-brainer pricing and holiday timing.

 

[The Hermit]

nah i'm serious. i had a coworker asking if i was getting one and the answer was always no.

i just don't get it. it looked really unappealing, like a cheap cash grab. i think the scarcity points to that - nintendo was probably expecting only a small amount of units, and maybe based off market research of similar devices.
).

I though the same since before launch. And I think even Nintendo did. It felt like a niche system, to old fans.

They didn't expected it to sell so much (I didn't either) and here we are now.

 

[Stinkles]

I'm glad it's messy because that will speed the inevitable and superior SNES Classic - although that system will be FAR more reliant on 3rd party games for true greatness. Here's my list though:

1. SMW
2. Zelda: LTTP
3. Whatever the good Street Fighter was
4. Konami shooter - let's say Axelay for shits n giggles
5. Actraiser
6. The good Castevania
7. A Capcom shooter
8. Some sort of RPG for nerds
9. Starfox
10. Oh shit, Mario Kart. What was I thinking.

11. HOW DID I FORGET SUPER METROID

 

[hobozero]

I was in Japan shortly after the Mini Famicom launch and planned to get one there, didn't see the shortage coming. They were out of stock everywhere I checked in Tokyo

Ironically, that was also the only time I have ever seen the NES Classic in stock anywhere - Super Potato had 3 of them. I remember chuckling to myself when I saw them, now I kind of wonder if I should have dropped the 17,000 yen on one.

 

[whalleywhat]

One is unintentional, the other sounds extremely sinister

I don't know that sinister is the right term, but it would certainly be a form of business practice that was manipulative and dishonest.

I always understood that the Wii's initial scarcity was regarded as a component of its success (how significant being up for debate, obviously), making it somewhat exclusive and keeping it in the news, etc., and it doesn't seem beyond the pale that they would try to recreate those circumstances, artificially. Thinking back to around the time of the Wii U's release, there definitely seemed to be a certain buzz around "You need to get this thing while you can, or else you could be out of luck for months," but I couldn't tell you if that originated from Nintendo itself, retail, or possibly even flippers.

I've also heard the theory floated that the scarcity of the 3DS and NES Classic this holiday season were both due to Nintendo gearing all its production towards the Switch, which would make sense, if that's how those things work.

 

[SumptuousLemur]

Why not buy them for next Christmas?

We're talking about NES games, not the latest COD. They've already dated, another year or two isn't going to hurt.


I decided I wanted one shortly after the announcement. Pre-ordered it. It arrived in the post. Complete trainwreck.

Are you kidding me?

Canada had no pre-orders, like many regions and the fact you are trying to defend the NES Classic Edition's launch pretty much discredits you.

It is one of Nintendo's poorest launches ever when it comes to stock, availability and things being scalped for ridiculous prices.

 

[Marty Chinn]

True, they could have lost money or they could have started with preorders to judge demand and increased supply so that it likely would have been sold out or close to it by schist as/Boxing Day or so. Controlling production and stores supply is why there are people paid hundreds of base workers pay salaries in order to maximise profits for the company and IMHO they left money on the table.

Sure, the avoided big losses, but they also avoided making a lot more money... nothing people would or should get me bonuses for.

Nintendo has clearly shown that they'd rather make some money over a lot of money without the risk of big losses. This product is very volatile and I reiterate again just looking at people posting in this thread on how fickle and short attention spanned they wanted to buy this device. I think people over emphasize preorders. It only gets you so far, and you're still production constrained. If you do preorders too soon, you risk people committing and then changing their minds. This holds especially true for something else or better to come along. Remember, a preorder isn't a guaranteed sale or commitment. It's a non committal interest. If you do them closer to release, then you're production constrained.

We need to look at how preorders of hardware has gone in the past. Typically, there's a set allocation and once that's out, that's it. Look at how every console hardware release has been with preorders. Look at PSVR for the most recent example. You get maybe a 24 hour window and then it's cut off because of supply constraints. Look at Switch preorders. That was done in less than 12 hours. PS4 preorders were sold out quickly too. So really, what are preorders really buying us here? All it's doing is moving the rush of sales up sooner and still resulting in supply constrain due to the nature of the realities of production lines.

Nintendo misread this, but I don't think anyone could have predicted the frenzy that this thing was. No other device like this has lit up the market before. No retailer, or analyst could have predicted this just as much as they couldn't have predicted Hatchimals were going to be the huge in thing this holiday season. Hell you still can't buy a Hatchimal. Everyone is looking at this with either fanboy goggles and/or in hindsight. I mean really, look at the reactions here. If Nintendo didn't have this product within a 30 day window, people no longer wanted to buy it. That's an extremely short lived narrow window that you have to target and yet I bet not a single person here could give a good answer on how many Nintendo should have produced. 1 million? 2 million? 5 million? What's the right number that Nintendo should have produced? Can anyone give a good answer for that? This is an anomaly given what it is, and the market this device sits among. Nintendo could have made more money, but the fact is they made money, and I don't blame them for going conservative given how many people here have said, I'm no longer interested.

 

[BGBW]

11. HOW DID I FORGET SUPER METROID

You work for Nintendo.

 

[Symbiotx]

You work for Nintendo.

Haha perfect.