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Nintendo to combat early selling in Europe

Toadthemushroom

Toadthemushroom

Member
Sounds like future releases, perhaps starting as early as Xenoblade 2, will be shipped to retailers later than usual to combat early shipments. I'm guessing this is a reaction to Super Mario Odyssey landing in players' hands up to two days early.

Indie stores concerned as Nintendo delays shipments in Europe

Nintendo to crack down on early selling

The MCV piece has more insight behind how it might impact independent retailers, who traditionally send out games early as a competitive advantage over larger stores like Amazon and the high street:

Receiving stock shortly before a game’s release presents an increased logistical challenge, and also means some retailers will face higher postage costs, as they will have to post via next day to ensure that customers receive the product on the day of release.
Click to expand...

Those days may be behind us, but plenty of websites attract a decent buyer base due to their propensity to ship games out anything up to a week early. The justification is often that posting early is required to account for potential delivery hiccups that could leave a customer without their game on launch day.
Click to expand...

In the UK at least, 93% of first class post arrives within a day, so I suspect even shipping out on Thursday, if retailers receive stock two days later than the usual Tuesday, may disappoint a small proportion of buyers.

What do you think about this?
 
Shifty

Shifty

Member
As somebody who received Mario Odyssey a day early I am shocked and disgusted.

Really though, I guess this is preferable to the first alternative that comes to mind, a.k.a. shipping on time and then using software-side DRM to lock out copies until release date.
 
C

Cpt Lmao

Member
Tough situation. I personally never order games from Amazon because they near-perpetually fuck up on delivery; the retailers' argument for avoiding hiccups is totally valid, because one bad delivery is enough to make a gamer never pre-order a game again.
 
Toadthemushroom

Toadthemushroom

Member
Shifty. said:
As somebody who received Mario Odyssey a day early I am shocked and disgusted.

Really though, I guess this is preferable to the first alternative that comes to mind, a.k.a. shipping on time and then using software-side DRM to lock out copies until release date.
Click to expand...

I guess it's also better than delaying the European release date by a week as The Pokémon Company must have pushed for with games following X and Y.

Probably Nintendo realising they have to do something after now internationally aligning release dates for nearly every first party game (Fire Emblem Warriors is the exception, but it was published by Koei Tecmo in Japan).
 
MegaMelon

MegaMelon

Member
Toadthemushroom said:
I guess it's also better than delaying the European release date by a week as The Pokémon Company must have pushed for with games following X and Y.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough the latest game Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon had a simultaneous release and sure enough, I got the game 2 days early here in the UK. So I can't really blame them.
 
A

AtlAntA

Member
Why is it so bad if people get a game 2 days early? Especially for something like Mario without multiplayer stuff i just don't get why it's such a bad thing.
 
NoKisum

NoKisum

Member
AtlAntA said:
Why is it so bad if people get a game 2 days early? Especially for something like Mario without multiplayer stuff i just don't get why it's such a bad thing.
Click to expand...
Potential spoilers. A good speedrunner that has good word of mouth can ruin it for a lot of people.
 
L

LambdaTeos

Member
AtlAntA said:
Why is it so bad if people get a game 2 days early? Especially for something like Mario without multiplayer stuff i just don't get why it's such a bad thing.
Click to expand...

Leaving aside the whole process the company has established in order to give support to certain product, the impact it can cause it losing potential sales

A user getting the game early can share the content of said game and block purchases from potential buyers

Not to mention it ruins the surprise factor, also, this is not so much as to "punish' users, but retailers that break street date, the way this can affect big retailers is that all process related to selling games, and distributing copies to different stores must be delayed

Personal opinion: Also, I don't think everyone who gets the game or content early is willing to share the content, however, so much work has been poured on it for one person to share all content early, it makes the people who share the content pretty pathetic tbh..(not defending the company, but by publishing everything, it might indirectly ruin the experience fo people who was actually waiting for the game)
 
Rellik

Rellik

Member
Lol what a silly thing to try and eliminate. I've been getting all my games up to 2-3 days early since the 360 and it's never caused an issue. It's standard in the UK if you pre order and don't use Amazon.
 
NoKisum

NoKisum

Member
Burn0ut said:
What?
Who got Mario Odyssey ruined?
This doesn’t seem like a real-life problem.
Extremely marginal I think.
Click to expand...
I remember reading about a small group of people who got the game early trying to speedrun Odyssey. I don't know if they succeeded (and unfortunately I'm on mobile so my searching is limited), but with the general length of the game's story it could be real easy to take the footage of the later levels and spoil the surprises for a lot of people.

Also, the guy below your post explained it a lot better.
 
L

LAA

Member
Yeah don't care for this either.
And I definitely understanding retailers wanting to ship early, as if I get a game late from a website, it will definitely affect me using them again.
The spoiler argument I don't really agree with, one person can and will get it early and that's all you need for spoilers to be on the net, multiple people getting it early after that won't affect anything more, and unless the person just posts spoilers in wrong threads, you're not seeing the spoilers unless you look for them.

The only real nice reason I can see with Nintendo trying this is that all their customers are then treated as equals for getting and playing the game at the same time, but I just see this as they would rather risk their customers getting the game later than earlier.
 
B

Burn0ut

Neo Member
NoKisum said:
I remember reading about a small group of people who got the game early trying to speedrun Odyssey. I don't know if they succeeded (and unfortunately I'm on mobile so my searching is limited), but with the general length of the game's story it could be real easy to take the footage of the later levels and spoil the surprises for a lot of people.

Also, the guy below your post explained it a lot better.
Click to expand...

If you don’t go looking for spoilers you won’t easily come across them.
Youtube movies with spoilers don’t open themself up and game news websites don’t write spoilers and even on forums like these where just a small part of gamers are, everything is tagged clearly.
So I really wonder how games get spoiled for people.
The biggest chance of spoilers are from friends and in locker rooms and whatsapp group chats I think...
 
Yoshi

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
It's good to see Nintendo has no important issues to deal with.
 
L

LeGourmand

Member
AtlAntA said:
Why is it so bad if people get a game 2 days early? Especially for something like Mario without multiplayer stuff i just don't get why it's such a bad thing.
Click to expand...

I doubt it's really for the players/spoilers, but for the store that respect official release date. If other stores release early it's a potential revenue lost for them.
 
Kamina

Kamina

Golden Boy
As someone who received Mario Odyssey 5 days early i have to say that i don’t really get why this is so important. A few days up and down are just not worth the hassle.
 
Wireframe

Wireframe

Member
I use a pretty large online retailer that's not amazon and I've always received games a day early at least. Hell I remember getting my FF 13 a week early from a mom and pop store. Let them keep their lead time, a lot of the time this could be considered the only edge keeping the store afloat.
 
Spukc

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
2 days early OM MY WHAT WILL HAPPEN.
pretty funny tho.
People was playing mario superstarsaga like 2 weeks earlier.

Metroid samus returns ? BAM 1 week
Ultra moon ? BAM 1 week.

Again who cares jeees
 
nkarafo

nkarafo

Member
What difference does it make if someone gets the game 2 days earlier and spoil it to others? Not everyone buy games day one. Not everyone finishes them in their first run. So people who like to spoil will continue to do so regardless.
 
Pila

Pila

Member
Shifty. said:
I guess this is preferable to the first alternative that comes to mind, a.k.a. shipping on time and then using software-side DRM to lock out copies until release date.
Click to expand...

I don't know... if they do that, I'm sure my game will be here at launch and they'll unlock it.

In the other scenario, I can totally see stuff delivered late. I know Italy. XD
 
jts

jts

...hate me...
I got my Wii Fit 10 days before street date and I got healthier for it

u could have killed me with these measures nintendo

Seriously though, I don't blame them. Companies are well within their rights to control their message and release schedule to enforce their product strategies in order to achieve their goals, whether we see value in them or not - that's not up to us.
 
S

Smasher89

Member
Thats kinda bad if you import games then, i remember preordering odyssey from uk to sweden, game was supposed to be sent on thursday (it took payment on friday for some reason) and then arrived on monday. With 2 days later that would probably be at wednesday almost a week after release.
 
R

Raitaro

Member
...and yet they have no problem sending out the same games early to more and more youtubers, thereby creating plenty of risks of people getting spoiled by thumbnails and videos in their subscription feed...

If they want to be so strict on this, don't send out early copies at all (except to review outlets). Don't reward the people with audiences but punish the few lucky regular joe fans I say.

Smasher89 said:
Thats kinda bad if you import games then, i remember preordering odyssey from uk to sweden, game was supposed to be sent on thursday (it took payment on friday for some reason) and then arrived on monday. With 2 days later that would probably be at wednesday almost a week after release.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that is also a good point. As someone who already has to wait a few days more for my UK copy to get to Germany (because I don't want German text on the box or USK logo's), adding more days of waiting would definitely suck.
 
H

Halfmunch

Member
AtlAntA said:
Why is it so bad if people get a game 2 days early? Especially for something like Mario without multiplayer stuff i just don't get why it's such a bad thing.
Click to expand...

One reason I can think of... so that all retailers sell the game on the same date.

Weird if Target gets to sell the game early but people shopping at Walmart have to wait.
 
Patrick S.

Patrick S.

Banned
This is so fucking stupid. Let that 0.001 percent of your customers play their game a day or two early, big fucking deal. Piracy isn't a thing on the Switch yet, is it?
 
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