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[Papacheeks]

It's going to be a blood bath for the Switch isn't gaf?

Especially since they are doing a global release. I swear they had to know how big a 59.99 piece of nostalgia was going to be. This thing exists to offset how piss poor their releases have been outside of Pokemon and for ramp up for Switch launch.

People will still want to buy this past the holiday because there isn't enough of these for christmas. And that will help offset Nintendo's launch for switch.

Just my thoughts on it.

 

[thegreatchamp]

Agree with Jim completely. Look at what happened to the new Nintendo 3DS this past weekend. If you weren't there at the beginning or had an alert system, then you had no chance of finding one.

The same also didn't happen two years ago with the Limited Edition Mario 3DS XL. You could find one of those easily on Black Friday (which was also a black friday exclusive) and up to a month after it released.

 

[border]

So it is Nintendo's brilliant and nefarious plan to sell more units by missing Black Friday and probably the holiday shopping season altogether?

That just doesn't make any sense at all. By the time supply ramps up, nobody will be looking to buy these as fun gifts and trinkets. This isn't a sustainable platform like the Wii....this is a fun novelty whose passing fancy is pretty limited.

Sorry, this conspiracy stuff really just doesn't track at all. It's far more likely that Nintendo is just being their usual penny-pinching selves and trying to skirt by on minimal manufacturing effort.

 

[Skittzo0413]

To be fair both the Wii U and 3DS were successors to the very popular Wii and DS, so it's easy to understand why they would make so many units of them. What's puzzling is the lack of desire to discount either of them significantly.

The 3DS has been discounted pretty heavily ($99 for new 3DS I believe, though that was a limited sale) but the Wii U probably just isn't worthwhile for them to discount. They have no interest in increasing sales of that product when they can focus all of that production and shipping money on their new system. And they probably realized that about the Wii U ever since the first $50 price cut years ago. This is kind of off-topic though.

 

[Papacheeks]

The Buyer(s) at Target will have asked for a minimal amount of stock months in advance, then as hype built at the last minute will have desperately tried to up their shipment, to little or no avail depending where they sit in the supply chain. There wasn't a lot of hype for NES mini when it was announced. Unlike Switch, for example, which saw 'Nintendo' trending everywhere the day the trailer came out.

Dude really? There was a lot of hype when this was announced, on top of that the switch announcement pumped everyone up for anything NINTENDO again.

They knew how hot this was going to be, press were pretty buzzed about it.

 

[kaioshade]

Here is what is weird to me.

People say nintendo are intentionally constraining systems.

People say no theyre not, theyre being "conservative" and intentionally not producing a lot of systems.

which is intentionally constraining systems.


And again just so people dont go insane. I have worked with global supply chains for quite a few years.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

Now this I can easily believe as I have seen this shit firsthand and it's mind boggling what kind of short sighted shit execs pull off for that yearly bonus.

Oh for sure this is the whole deal here. Every company I work for is the same story- short sighted, greedy execs who think they know everything and fuck with the production department by eliminating inventory, cutting staff and putting immense pressure on production and purchasing to still make numbers in spite of it. In this case we bash Nintendo for this shit, but it's commonplace in US companies who manufacture anything. It's low hanging fruit for them, and in the end it makes the employees who make less than 6 figures work twice as hard, the contract manufacturers work under tighter timelines and higher pressure, the retailer having empty shelves during xmas, and consumers not getting the product or paying 2 or 3 times retail from a reseller. All so the executives can go to the shareholders and say 'see, here's where we saved all this money...'.

 

[aBarreras]

Here is what is weird to me.

People say nintendo are intentionally constraining systems.

People say no theyre not, theyre being "conservative" and intentionally not producing a lot of systems.

which is intentionally constraining systems.


And again just so people dont go insane. I have worked with global supply chains for quite a few years.

people are talking like if nintendo had many millions of nes mini waiting on a warehouse on some docks on seattle or something.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Here is what is weird to me.

People say nintendo are intentionally constraining systems.

People say no theyre not, theyre being "conservative" and intentionally not producing a lot of systems.

which is intentionally constraining systems.


And again just so people dont go insane. I have worked with global supply chains for quite a few years.

A lot of the people citing the artificial scarcity myth are saying that Nintendo has produced many more units than they are shipping in order to drive up demand, and thereafter ship more of the units they have just sitting around to make bank.

Intentionally under-producing is a completely different story with a completely different motivation.

 

[Pyrrhus]

and nes mini is a 30 years old console with 30 old games, and amiibo is just a overpriced dlc

I'll grant you that Amiibo was a new thing for them. But why were later run characters like Sheik and Ness still so hard for them to properly meet demand for if that's what they were honestly trying to do?

As for NES Mini, they revealed this thing back in July and had huge, huge, huge response right from the start. Impressive number of views on their Youtube video, lots of third party videos about it, lots of hype in the comments, lots of views of the product on online stores, lots of highly read, anticipatory articles in both mainstream and specialist magazines. They had any number of ways to know this thing was resonating big time. And in any case they aren't even supplying the amounts the stores have asked for.

If they intended to actually distribute this thing to meet demand they had plenty of ways to know demand was going to be high.

 

[LordRaptor]

Here is what is weird to me.

People say nintendo are intentionally constraining systems.

People say no theyre not, theyre being "conservative" and intentionally not producing a lot of systems.

which is intentionally constraining systems.

Nintendo looking at sales of something like a Sega mini and saying "We'll probably sell about the same amount, at the same price" is being conservative.
Nintendo saying "HAHAHA we know 1 million people want this product, so we will only make 100,000 that will piss people off! hahaha!" is intentionally constraining supply.

One seems likely, the other seems fanciful.

 

[RavageDark]

He's not wrong though, any way you look at it, a Target store only getting THREE of the fucking things is shady as shit.

....Isn't it up to the retailer to order a certain amount to sell?

 

[kaioshade]

Nintendo looking at sales of something like a Sega mini and saying "We'll probably sell about the same amount, at the same price" is being conservative.
Nintendo saying "HAHAHA we know 1 million people want this product, so we will only make 100,000 that will piss people off! hahaha!" is intentionally constraining supply.

One seems likely, the other seems fanciful.

Reasonable enough. Then i will change my wording. They do intentionally underproduce units. And generally try to scramble to get more to consumers when it sells out. However it is still shit for consumers who want, but cannot get something for themselves or someone else for the holidays.

They really need to sort that out though. But Nintendo is a company set in their ways, it seems.

 

[ElFly]

people claiming a Nintendo conspiracy on artificial demand need to come up with some fucking proof

put up or shut up

 

[Skittzo0413]

Reasonable enough. Then i will change my wording. They do intentionally underproduce units. And generally try to scramble to get more to consumers when it sells out. However it is still shit for consumers who want, but cannot get something for themselves or someone else for the holidays.

They really need to sort that out though. But Nintendo is a company set in their ways, it seems.

I will 100% agree with that. Nintendo, as a company, is being cheap.

They aren't playing some weird psychological game, they're just being plain old penny-pinching. And it would be nice if they changed, yes.

 

[Professor Beef]

you know what's a good business strategy?

not selling products

that's basically the kind of marketing analysis I expect from some GAF posters

 

[Kaisos]

There was a thread or a post or something about some manager at the Nintendo World Store being genuinely shocked that people wanted these. After stuff like the Allison Rapp debacle and the sudden takedown of countless Nintendo fangames I'm just convinced that the people who make decisions at Nintendo are impossibly out of touch and don't use the Internet at all.

If you plan to deliver 100000 units at launch but you sell those 100000 via pre-orders 2 months before launch you know for sure that you need to produce and deliver much more to the stores to cover up for the demand. You can even open new pre-orders as you handle the additional production and see how much more is needed.

Do you think they can produce enough units to cover for the demand? It doesn't sound like it to me.

People in here are thinking that they'd be guaranteed a Mini if they preordered, but I feel all that would have happened is that it would have immediately sold out to scalpers, much like amiibos did. At least this way you could theoretically have gotten one at launch if you lined up early enough.

 

[SeeNoWeevil]

Nintendo are indeed fuckheads, and their fans will take an almost limitless supply of their fuckheadery.

 

[KingSnake]

Neither of those are about a person, they are both literally addressing the thing that person has said. Look, I'm actually quoting the thing that was said and directly referring to it.

Not going "All you've done is troll post! Here's a picture of a kettle!"

You have no damn clue what "ad hominem" and "literally", don't you?

Ad hominem is not only about saying "you're ugly" or "you're stupid" as an answer to an opinion, it also means questioning the motives or bringing things like "but he doesn't like the subject of the discussion anyhow" instead of discussing the argument that person has made. Or implying that the employees who work in retail are not smart enough to have qualified opinions about their daily work.

Quoting what a person has said in a different context doesn't exclude it from qualifying as "ad hominem". Especially when that person hasn't said "literally" what you quote. Think well about what "literally" means before answering with your interpretation of his words.

 

[Vena]

I think this more of a supply line issue than anything.

 

[Aces&Eights]

Just to play devils advocate, maybe their parts purchasing department got reamed with the amount of WiiUs they ordered for launch day. Now, they figure they can always order more if they sell out but won't have to deal with market saturation or excess inventory ever again.

That said, they sure as shit better not do this with the Switch.

 

[LordRaptor]

Quoting what a person has said in a different context doesn't exclude it from qualifying as "ad hominem".

I'm sorry, using someones previous statements about a product when discussing their later statements about a product is - literally - not an "ad hominem".
You can dispute the relevance or the interpretation of those statements if you want, but those statements were made, and they represent a previous position that can be contrasted with a current position.

e:
You seem to be projecting an argument I'm not even making by claiming I'm saying "Jim Sterling doesn;t like Nintendo waaah waaah waaah" or some such nonsense.
I disagree on his stance that old NES games aren't worth $5 so you should just download them for free.
I disagree on his stance that Nintendo "artificially constrain supplies" to shit on people who work retail.
I disagree on many of his stances, but I don't refer to irrelevant ones when discussing his current Hot Take (when I do)

 

[Graphics Horse]

Just to play devils advocate, maybe their parts purchasing department got reamed with the amount if WiiUs they ordered for launch day. Now, they figure they can always order more of they sell out but won't have to deal with market saturation or excess inventory ever again.

That said, they sure as shit better not do this with the Switch.

We have an initial estimate for Switch as being 2 million shipped in March, may change before then but we have something to measure sales against at least.

 

[Kthulhu]

I think this more of a supply line issue than anything.

Obviously. The debate is over what is causing the issue.

 

[border]

Here is what is weird to me.

People say nintendo are intentionally constraining systems.

People say no theyre not, theyre being "conservative" and intentionally not producing a lot of systems.

which is intentionally constraining systems.

Keeping production runs low so as to eliminate risk is generally understandable behavior.

Intentionally withholding supply so you can drive up demand and create greater sales later on is less rational, and in the realm of a weird conspiracy. Especially for companies who have a huge reliance on the holiday shopping season. After December 25, the market for Hatchimals or NES Classics will be a fraction of what it is today, so it would be phenomenally stupid to deliver any less units than you are capable of.

 

[Neuromancer]

I cannot believe stores are only getting 5 of these things. That is absolutely insane.

 

[Kthulhu]

Keeping production runs low so as to eliminate risk is generally understandable behavior.

Intentionally withholding supply so you can drive up demand and create greater sales later on is less rational, and in the realm of a weird conspiracy. Especially for companies who have a huge reliance on the holiday shopping season. After December 25, the market for Hatchimals or NES Classics will be a fraction of what it is today, so it would be phenomenally stupid to deliver any less units than you are capable of.

So Nintendo is run by idiots?

 

[perfectchaos007]

https://youtu.be/yt4KG9ib8S4?t=6m15s

Nintendo: not supplying enough units since 1988

 

[levyjl1988]

Nintendo will probably meet demand a year later. Long after the demand is there. They should have maximized its effectiveness when it launched as many people came for it.

I'm looking at the overstock of Pokemon Go watches. People don't want them anymore.

 

[btrboyev]

The 3DS has been discounted pretty heavily ($99 for new 3DS I believe, though that was a limited sale) but the Wii U probably just isn't worthwhile for them to discount. They have no interest in increasing sales of that product when they can focus all of that production and shipping money on their new system. And they probably realized that about the Wii U ever since the first $50 price cut years ago. This is kind of off-topic though.

Them. It dropping the price makes no sense at this point. If stores can't clear it out by March, those systems will just go back to Nintendo or stores will have clear them out and lose $$.

Nintendo should have dropped the price years ago. Now they don't want people to buy it because the switch is close.

 

[Professor Beef]

So Nintendo is run by idiots?

They probably underestimated how hot it would be. At least, that's my guess. Never in a million years would I have thought a plug & play would sell like gangbusters in 2016, but here we are.

 

[xeroborn55]

I dont understand why Nintendo didn't just have a temp. price cut on ALL 3ds models for black friday. The system is years old by this point, there are dozens of games for people to buy which nintendo will make money from, + accessories. Not to mention it would have brought people back to nintendo who might not be current customers and potentially entice them to buy other nintendo products, like the Switch.

 

[Papacheeks]

They probably underestimated how hot it would be. At least, that's my guess. Never in a million years would I have thought a plug & play would sell like gangbusters in 2016, but here we are.

A plug in Play that is Sold by Nintendo and looks like a mini NES? That will sell like crazy especially since it's officially licensed by Nintendo.

Everyone knew how big is was going to be but Nintendo.

 

[Vena]

Obviously. The debate is over what is causing the issue.

What's the debate then? If its a supply line issue, then its not "artificial scarcity" its a bottleneck in production. Either they don't have the factory lines for the demand or they produce too far ahead of time and then don't have another window until a later date or they are overly conservative in the face of some perceived demand.

One of those is logistical, one of those is scheduling, and one of those is incompetence and/or being overly conservative, or all three of them are some shades of manufacturing incompetence and/or conservatism. But none of them are "artificial scarcity".

Artificial scarcity would imply they have ample stock but delay it to build up demand, to then cash in on a hot shopping period. That's obviously not happening, so the argument is lacking any logical flow to be believable. Artificial scarcity in this case is more of a bogeyman but it doesn't really make sense in reality.

 

[Muscle Wizard]

Why is he dressed as a Nazi?

 

[Professor Beef]

A plug in Play that is Sold by Nintendo and looks like a mini NES? That will sell like crazy especially since it's officially licensed by Nintendo.

Everyone knew how big is was going to be but Nintendo.

A plug & play that contains games that have already been available for purchase for the past decade on 2 previous systems.

 

[Papacheeks]

A plug & play that contains games that have already been available for purchase for the past decade on 2 previous systems.

That not many people outside of hardcore Nintendo fans bought. This is for the masses, as in people who dont buy consoles. But remember Mario, Punchout when they were a kid.

Buzz for this device pre-launch was really high. People wanted it, Nintendo failed again to deliver enough.

If this is an indication for how the global launch for the switch will be...then shit, god be with us gaf.

 

[glaringradio]

Why is he dressed as a Nazi?

Black & red = nazi... gotcha

 

[pvpness]

Then Nintendo is simply incompetent, I don't recall scarcity with the PS2 being anywhere near as bad as it was with the Wii.

Shrug. Fuck if I know. If you're asking me personally I'd say they've handled managing my interests in their products terribly and it makes them seem incompetent. I've no real idea what Nintendo's motivations are outside of the obvious Get Money so I can't say with any certainty that they're incompetent in those areas.

I'm almost surprised I've never seen it leveled at PSVR, almost. Those are all hand crafted by Japanese Monks though.

Lol. Handed down from generation to generation. Honestly this artifical scarcity argument is so old I'm always surprised when it comes up these days. Then again I still see plenty of people out in the wild that believe that Nintendo's 3rd party relationships will improve with their next console in some weird, infinite temporal loop. So I guess I should expect reruns in other areas as well.

Because Nintendo has never done this before. Ever.

What? Under ship a product that turns out to have rabid demand? Yeah, I can think of at least one other recent example as well. That doesn't mean that Nintendo is behind closed doors cackling at the idea of people wanting their products but not being able to get them.

Not having enough product to sell to the masses is a loss for Nintendo no matter how you look at it.

 

[Kthulhu]

Why is he dressed as a Nazi?

I take it this is your first Jimquisition video.

They probably underestimated how hot it would be. At least, that's my guess. Never in a million years would I have thought a plug & play would sell like gangbusters in 2016, but here we are.

It seems like you and Nintendo are the only ones who didn't.

 

[Pandy]

Dude really? There was a lot of hype when this was announced, on top of that the switch announcement pumped everyone up for anything NINTENDO again.

They knew how hot this was going to be, press were pretty buzzed about it.

Nonsense. There's been a bunch of hype in the last few weeks, and you may be right that the Switch announcement had something to do with that, but in the timescales of industrial production and supply the hype came far too late to have an impact on Day 1 numbers.

Having a hard time getting a solid metric, but for example here's a GAF thread about whether to pre-order the NES classic which barely scraped over 50 posts.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1253433
Of course, there are a few gaffers there accurately predicting constrained supply, but given the thread title you'd have expected a much bigger thread if there was a lot of demand that early on.

 

[Tizoc]

A plug & play that contains games that have already been available for purchase for the past decade on 2 previous systems.

Which would be a good product for those who didnt own said 2 previous system

 

[Throwaway123456789]

From what I've heard from sources and seen at retail, I'm shocked if Nintendo supplied the entire country of Norway with more than 1000 units in total. No restocks until next year for most retailers, too.

 

[thechristoph]

You know that there is such a thing called market research? Which is pretty essential for a company like Nintendo that depends a lot on a success of few products. So if what you say is true then their market research departments are severally lacking in quality. I know that Wii U doesn't make their market research department look very strong, but that seems to be a misstep more in the sense that the market moved quickly into new direction and it was too late to change.

I find the scenario in which Nintendo really have no idea what the demand for their products is to be the worst of all possible scenarios. As I said previously, as a last resort in case there is not enough market data get the preorders up as quickly as possible to gauge the interest.

I guess you didn't read the part when I said maybe they rushed it to have something on shelves for Christmas, which was my entire point.

 

[Muscle Wizard]

Black & red = nazi... gotcha

The black clothing, dictating from a podium, and the Nazi-esque flag behind him is a pretty big indicator.

 

[Novocaine]

The black clothing, dictating from a podium, and the Nazi-esque flag behind him is a pretty big indicator.

Also I think Jim has killed millions of Jews.

Really dude?

 

[Lupin the Third]

A plug in Play that is Sold by Nintendo and looks like a mini NES? That will sell like crazy especially since it's officially licensed by Nintendo.

Everyone knew how big is was going to be but Nintendo.

I'm in the camp that Nintendo is being foolishly deliberate in its undershipments for whatever reason. I ordered 30 for my store and got 6. Our local Fred Meyers all got 3 a piece. Walmarts in our area mostly got 6 per store. I live in the biggest city in my state. Nintendo deliberately ignored order quantities and sent a fraction of them. That is not some "let's be conservative and make only what is ordered" situation, that is "manufacturing trouble" or "let's deliberately under-ship" levels of constraint.

But, to Nintendo's credit, lots of armchair analysts on GAF were confident no one would want this thing because it was old games that have been sold on VC.

Nintendo just needed to look at the number of Facebook shares upon announcement to know it would be huge among casuals. They had months upon months to up the production quantity. They could have at LEAST supplied the number that retailers ordered. They deliberately DID NOT. But why?

 

[Muscle Wizard]

Also I think Jim has killed millions of Jews.

Really dude?

Yeah, he looks like a Nazi.

 

[Skittzo0413]

That not many people outside of hardcore Nintendo fans bought. This is for the masses, as in people who dont buy consoles. But remember Mario, Punchout when they were a kid.

Which would be a good product for those who didnt own said 2 previous system

You guys are aware that one of those previous 2 systems with all of these games available was the Wii, right? As in the >100 million units sold Wii? Which sold to the casual crowd that "don't buy consoles"?

This was a very niche product in my opinion until for some reason it blew up in recent weeks. Not that this excuses their lack of supply.

Edit:

Nintendo just needed to look at the number of Facebook shares upon announcement to know it would be huge among casuals. They had months upon months to up the production quantity. They could have at LEAST supplied the number that retailers ordered. They deliberately DID NOT. But why?

Probably because they massively underproduced this device. Which probably happened for one of any number of reasons.

But that is artificial scarcity, which is the myth that this thread is based on.

 

[Nostremitus]

I can never force myself to watch his videos...

I'll click on it... But just cannot listen or watch him for more than 15 to 20 seconds...