Bronetta
Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
$329
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GoNintendo: "Getting the switch at gamestop might be a bit of a difficult endeavor"
- Thread starter bomblord1
- Start date
$329
Seems likely to be a placeholder to me...Does Switzerland/Lichtenstein have a history of ultra high electronic prices?
God I hope it's one SKU. I went with the cheaper one for the Wii U and it didn't take long before you couldn't even trade it in (to GS at least). Only way I would spend the extra $50 is if it includes a quality pack in game.
I'm starting to seriously question if they'll bother with a deluxe, especially after nobody bought the basic Wii U.
PadWarrior
Member
LOL I bought it.
I really have no idea. Either way makes sense to me, but they have to try a little harder with the basic SKU than they did with the Wii U.
Sorry, not nobody. Relatively few. 😉
Agreed. They definitely need to not make it seem like he definitively "lesser" model if they go with multiple versions. In some ways I think we'll see lots of official bundles later in the year and in the future, similar to 3DS.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Hat shouldn't matter. BestBuy.com allocation is separate from the per store allocations.
psychodino
Neo Member
yay artifical scarcity
They updated on Twitter, its 20-30 units per store apparently. So if you are in a rural area you are fine
I hope this is true. I talked to a Gamestop Manager yesterday and she heard no information on when pre-orders open up.
Xdrive05
Member
It's a good thing, that. I'll be humping a line Friday morning for sure!
She's probably just not allowed to talk about it. If pre-orders are going up this week like everyone's expecting then there's no way she doesn't know.
Okami Haundo
Member
Unless you two are close friends, no manager is going to give out information like that to a customer.
TyMiles2012
Member
I actually did that with Halo Reach and got a copy. GameStop ran out and a guy in line knew I didn't preorder. Salty day for that man. I even got all the preorder bonuses!
I also managed to order an NES Classic as soon as the online gates opened without preordering. I gotta tell ya. Ordering a high in demand item at release is stressful as fuck. As soon as I got home from work, I got an alert on my phone that the first online wave was available at around 1:15am I think, so I immediately jumped on Amazon and GameStop's site. Amazon didn't even open orders at all, though I opened the page just in case so I could have a higher chance. My order kept failing over and over with the servers slowing to a crawl, but I stayed resilient and kept readding to my cart and attempting to reorder and after 3 hours, I gave up and showered for 30 minutes and hopped back on my PC and they were STILL in stock surprisingly. Order went by super smoothly with no slowdowns at that time and as soon as I got my confirmation email, it went out of stock. God damn it was stressful, but I'm happy I got one! Delivered in 2 business days as promised as well, so it wasn't backordered.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Varies by reason. Amazon US hadn't tended to carry a lot of recent Nintendo hardware (though they have had some 3DS bundles lately) and they've only been available through third party sellers. Amazon UK and other countries have apparently regularly carried them.
In any case, no one knows yet, and probably won't until Thursday night.
gingerbeardman
Member
Worldwide?
Steve Youngblood
Member
Can you expound on this?
With how long the switch appears to have been in production there is no other good reason for GameStop to get so few units.
As for their previous successes:
Wii
Amiibo
NES Classic
Multiple different 3ds games (mostly to keep the games at higher prices longer - star fox and ocarina of time off the top of my head)
Holiday 2016 new 3ds
They even tried to do it with Wii U but seriously overestimated demand
(100% is obviously exaggeration but it seems very likely)
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Breh wii clearly wasn't an artificial storage. I'm not sure where someone would even get such an absurd idea. it's literally the fastest selling of all time for the for it's initial 3 years.
Steve Youngblood
Member
I think many of these represent different scenarios. Wii was a legitimate smash success for years. It legitimately sold a lot of units. Some of the other things I think you can argue that they should have shipped more, but I don't get how they are part of some master plan. OK, they deliberately undershipped these things to drive up demand. Can you explain how they subsequently capitalized on that?
I don't know. I just feel like we're in kind of an underpants gnome situation here where everyone argues that their strategy is patently obvious, but we skip a step before concluding that they profit big time.
1.) Ship way too little product.
2.) Watch demand skyrocket.
3.) ?????????
4.) Profit!
pixelation
Member
This, i can't see the Switch being a hot item at all. Maybe i'm wrong though...
You can't imagine new hardware being hard to find when it's happened numerous times in the past?
pixelation
Member
I think gamers who want one will pre-order and pre-orders may sell out. But i also think that you'll be able to just walk into a store on day one and get it with relative ease.
Gotdatmoney
Member
At what point did they ever capitalize on the pent up demand with a big stock release? And including the Wii in there is flat out bat shot insane.
No need to be so negative I'm sure the system will sell well. At the very least the launch should sell well.
Just like PSVR. So much "first shipment sold out!!!" talk on that and then on release day they were just stacked to the ceiling at Target and Best Buy. I suspect Switch will be the same, unless we get NOA'd.
PadWarrior
Member
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5n79w7/nintendo_switch_us_price_leak/
Looks like Reddit mod confirmed the guy.
Looks like Reddit mod confirmed the guy.
Gai Murakumo
Member
Damn why does our Dollar have to suck so much.
Perfect price point if true.
xochipiltontli
Member
Edit: nvm
I cannot believe people are falling for Gamestop propaganda.
There are plenty of retailers/online avenues to go to for getting a Switch. Gamestop is far from the end-all, be-all, and they are hardly pro-consumer. Whatever allocation they receive will be lessened by the craving for extra profits via Web In Store. Don't fall for that shit, people.
There are plenty of retailers/online avenues to go to for getting a Switch. Gamestop is far from the end-all, be-all, and they are hardly pro-consumer. Whatever allocation they receive will be lessened by the craving for extra profits via Web In Store. Don't fall for that shit, people.
Kremzeek
Member
Totally. It could be one or the other, or even both reasons!
ANYONE who wants to buy a Switch should be able to get one- Nintendo can't afford to turn anyone away at this point.
wild wild rice
Member
That's cray.
Now I hope someone spills the pre-order beans. Actually, just PM me. No one else needs to know...
Kremzeek
Member
Uhhhh.... PSVR has been completely sold out everywhere in the US since Thanksgiving.
Mick Swagger
Member
Not if you live in a major metropolitan area.
Or in a smaller town where people are strange (or smart) and say $500 for that junk!?.
Local walmart has plenty collecting dust on the shelf and truthfully, despite wanting to try it, it's not worth the price.
I mean, who knows? The pre-launch hype train has barely left the station. It's far too early to call. If there's one thing I've learned in my 30 years as a gamer, it's to not underestimate
(or overestimate, lol)
I feel the same. I also think people genuinely underestimate how hard it can be to gauge demand, and Nintendo is understandably skittish from over-stuffing the channel like before. Even Apple was caught off guard by demand from the iPhone SE. It's hard stuff!
I think since it's a March release and not a holiday one, it's not going to be a bloodbath or anything. But people who really want it preordered better have their finger on the trigger.
Steve Youngblood
Member
In general, you need to wait a month or two to get a clear picture of how things are going. I think people are kind of jumping to conclusions in both directions that are ignoring some basic tenants of a product launch. It's not altogether uncommon for launch allotments to sell out. This often doesn't tell you much about a products success or a company's ability to meet demand. You have to wait for official PR or stuff like NPD sales results to get an idea of what happened. One's ability to walk into a store and find one on a shelf isn't in and of itself evidence that the product has flopped. Conversely, the fact that it's impossible to find anywhere aside from marked up on eBay isn't necessarily an indication that the product is doing gangbusters.
As a general rule, I think it's more common than not for a launch to sell out though just because I don't think companies want to overestimate demand and be stuck with unmovable inventory. Maybe it's part of a play to create artificial scarcity, but I also think mass producing millions of units of a brand new product is no easy task. And reassessing and changing allotments is going to be something that takes time. Once you realize you have a hit product on your hands, there's a ton of moving parts at play here that dictate that you can't just snap your fingers and magically manifest the amount of product you need.
As a general rule, I think it's more common than not for a launch to sell out though just because I don't think companies want to overestimate demand and be stuck with unmovable inventory. Maybe it's part of a play to create artificial scarcity, but I also think mass producing millions of units of a brand new product is no easy task. And reassessing and changing allotments is going to be something that takes time. Once you realize you have a hit product on your hands, there's a ton of moving parts at play here that dictate that you can't just snap your fingers and magically manifest the amount of product you need.
Mushroomer25
Member
The other important factor is that Nintendo only ships as many units as retailers are willing to supply. Their last console flopped hard, so yo u can see purchasers being hesitant about huge orders. It's speculated this is what doomed the NES Classic, since past 'plug and play' retro consoles only did reasonable business.
That's not to say that they may be under selling retailer willingness. But it isn't 100% in their control.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Exactly. About the only time you could make a reasonable argument for the third step is the Wii. It was super scarce after launch, got tons of press for the lines etc. over the holidays and then they made bucko bucks by shipping a ton, selling them all instantly for a year plus and at record numbers a retailers were getting regular, large shipments.
Even then I don't buy that they intentionally undershipped at launch to generate that buzz. Demand was just crazy and they ended up benefiting from that buzz leading to more media coverage, more people lining up every time a big box store advertised having stock keeping the buzz and demand for the product growing far longer than usual after console launches.
Everything else they've either failed to put out enough stock to capitize (NES Classic) or it came too late and ends up sitting discounted on Store shelves (Amiibo with even stuff like Lucina that went for high mark ups being readily available in sales lately).
I literally haven't seen a PSVR since shortly before Thanksgiving. It was very weird. When I got mine from Amazon, I went to Best Buy to snag some games and they were sitting on the shelf stacked to the heavens. Then it seems like word of mouth caught on and you couldn't find one by mid November through now.
Voysa Reezun
Banned
Nintendo just doesn't understand the NA market at all. It is like they don't understand their wider audience beyond the Nintendo diehards. They have misjudged NA consistently in terms of shipments since I started paying closer attention to that stuff in the GameCube era. That seems the simplest explanation.