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[Celine]

The only way to help a bit with preorders would be to ask retailers to take only 1 item per person.
Even by doing that SNES Classic would probably selling out quickly.
Demand for NES Classic and SNES Classic is abnormally high compared to product of the same ilk (Sega, Atari, SNK, Intellivision yeah yeah I know they aren't handled by the original company but still).
Have you ever seen common people lining up at launch day for a retro plug & play console like it was a real console?
That's what happened with NES Classic.

 

[lord_of_flood]

Making more is the easy answer, but no one really knows where the golden line that tells you "I've produced just enough units to satisfy demand" is, because to be quite honest, NES/SNES Classic is a huge anomaly among plug-and-play consoles. I don't think any plug-and-play product ever saw this kind of hype before the NES Classic came out, so trying to figure out the right (or even close to right) amount of supply for the given demand would be extremely difficult given how little precedent there is for such high demand on this type of product. I don't imagine Nintendo wants to produce these for very long either because there's no additional money made after the sale of the system.

Other alternatives would be to significantly raise the MSRP to curb excessive demand (though this also carries its own risks) and retailers implementing various methods to combat it on their front (limiting purchases to 1 per credit card/address, possible bot-checking methods, etc.). It would be nice if scalping was more heavily regulated in a legal sense though.

 

[LegendofLex]

Making more is the easy answer, but no one really knows where the golden line that tells you "I've produced just enough units to satisfy demand" is

The big wrinkle in the mix, too, is that once you produce enough units to deter scalpers, that means all the units that would have been scalped also get reabsorbed into the regular market.

And it's not like there's prior learning that can be applied to this product because it exists in a category where no product nearly as successful as NES Classic/SNES Classic has ever existed.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

Make More is legitimately the right answer.

How much more is the question, but this is what you have analysts for. This isn't a new console situation like the wii u either. This is static merchandise, whereas the wii u had expectations to sell through its stock as software expanded. Analysts can get you pretty damn close to the right number to manufacture to meet demand and maximize profits. Nintendo's failure to do that is baffling. I can only assume that they are pumping out these classics as limited items for easy profit and then plan on releasing switch virtual console and prefer the classic consoles no longer be up for grabs or ubiquitous enough to cut into virtual console sales where margins are higher.

 

[dragonyeuw]

Making more is the easy answer, but no one really knows where the golden line that tells you "I've produced just enough units to satisfy demand" is, because to be quite honest, NES/SNES Classic is a huge anomaly among plug-and-play consoles. I don't think any plug-and-play product ever saw this kind of hype before the NES Classic came out, so trying to figure out the right (or even close to right) amount of supply for the given demand would be extremely difficult given how little precedent there is for such high demand on this type of product. I don't imagine Nintendo wants to produce these for very long either because there's no additional money made after the sale of the system.

They were in position to handle the SNES mini release better then they have(thus far), armed with the very recent experience of the NES mini situation. It's unprecedented only in relation to other plug and plays, but they should now know better based off recent history.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

It's not like Nintendo is the only company in the gaming industry that makes products people want, but they seem to always have this issue. The Problem is them and their supply chain

 

[Nick Van Excel]

Pretty simple. Make more units.

 

[meerak]

People are just childish with their desires. Just accept that you can't have everything you want, end of story. Try and buy your SNES mini in a few years maybe. What is the rush? This whole problem only exists because of I WANT IT NOW RIGHT NOW mentality. You all deserve to be unhappy in my opinion. I wish literally everything was sold in small quantities so that people could constantly NOT GET what they want and realize it's not that big a deal.

Grrrrr!!!

^mad post

 

[lobdale]

It's a toy. They want everyone to want one. They want it to be hotly talked about, lusted for, and in demand. The moment anyone sees them languishing on store shelves that's over. It's Holiday Toy Craze 101.

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

Nintendo doesn't give a fuck about scalpers.

Indeed. From Nintendo's perspective a scalper is a paying customer. A sale is a sale.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

As long as these products are limited run items, they cannot. They could make 50x as many units and the problem would remain. Or if they somehow solved the issue, they'd be stuck with tons of excess stock.

If they make them long term products, the scalpers will eventually go away.

 

[Hellshy.]

Nintendo is not in the business of making retro products, and they want to focus on the Nintendo Switch and 3DS.

They can't just simply "make more". Its not a viable option manufacturing wise.

How is it not a viable option to make more?

 

[Hyoukokun]

A few things could be done, from what I can see:

• Increase the price modestly.
• Implement some sort of wait-list with a randomized raffle to distribute the waves of hardware as they become available
• Implement basic safeguards against scalping: 1 per customer / shipping address. Hard to implement across retailers, but Target shouldn't be shipping 12 of these to 1 person. Possibly implement a captcha or similar to help weed out bots.
• Capture / quantify demand properly (if everyone just lands on a 'coming soon / sold out' page, the only info you get is that you didn't make enough...)
• Direct sales from the manufacturer. If third-party vendors are part of the problem here, compete with them directly.

A lot of these things aren't directly within the control of the hardware producer, but a big enough retailer like Amazon could probably implement this without trouble. Of course, Amazon specifically has a perverse incentive to enable scalpers here, since a lot of those scalpers will turn around and sell on Amazon, at which point Amazon will get a big chunk of the proceeds...

 

[Chinbo37]

Nintendo is not in the business of making retro products, and they want to focus on the Nintendo Switch and 3DS.

They can't just simply "make more". Its not a viable option manufacturing wise.

Nes classic last year, snes this year. N64 heavily rumoured for next year ...

Not in the business you say? If they make the products that is that business.

If they want to focus on switch maybe they should finish virtual console.

 

[LegendofLex]

They were in position to handle the SNES mini release better then they have(thus far), armed with the very recent experience of the NES mini situation. It's unprecedented only in relation to other plug and plays, but they should now know better based off recent history.

They already made one significant change: they made units available for pre-order at multiple retailers.

The problem is they have no leverage over retailers to get them to implement and enforce anti-scalper policies. So scalpers, who have a better ground game for snatching up pre-orders and really any form of retail availability than the average consumer, will always show up to unnaturally shake up supply.

I don't see what else they can do, short of shipping more of these than they do their actual consoles (which is already what happened with NES Classic Mini in 2016). I don't think they want a situation where their biggest hit of the year is actually a thing that plays games from 25 years ago.

 

[Temeculan3000]

Really there is no-one in the entire supply chain who has any incentive to make it more than marginally fair. Everyone gets paid all the same.

The only type of store that would have an incentive to be fair is a mom-and-pop video game store, as an angry customer could actually hurt their business. But how many mom-and-pop's will actually be receiving a shipment of SNES classics? Zero?

 

[jts]

How can any company that wants to make a limited run product avoid scalpers?

They can't.

 

[dragonyeuw]

They already made one significant change: they made units available for pre-order at multiple retailers.

The problem is they have no leverage over retailers to get them to implement and enforce anti-scalper policies. So scalpers, who have a better ground game for snatching up pre-orders and really any form of retail availability than the average consumer, will always show up to unnaturally shake up supply.

I don't see what else they can do, short of shipping more of these than they do their actual consoles (which is already what happened with NES Classic Mini in 2016).

Nintendo very poorly communicated how preorders would work. That's why everyone was bitching the next day when amazon and bestbuy dropped them in the wee hours of the morning, leaving it to sheer dumb luck if you managed to get one. Now maybe those particular occurrences were the fault of those respective retailers. There's probably blame to spread around. But it's a problem when the best source of preorder info comes from someone called 'Wario64' and not Nintendo themselves via official press release. Frankly as I said before, I don't see how all this BS benefits the retailer beyond driving traffic to their store. If I may draw an immediate comparison with how Microsoft handled the X preorder, word was spread several days in advance that preorder info was forthcoming at the Xbox gamescom this past weekend. People were prepared and given a reasonable chance to get one. If you're going to have a preorder process, then make it so that EVERYONE knows exactly when that process will commence. Otherwise, there's no point and it leads to exactly the shitstorm we got yesterday.

As I've said a few times in this thread, they can handle the first waves of preorders themselves with a deposit system and a one unit per account/credit card/physical address restriction right off Nintendo's website. If they can't control how the retailers handle preorders, and this leads to scenarios like Walmart prematurely opening up preorders or amazon and bestbuy dropping them unannounced in the middle of the night...... then take direct control of the process themselves. That includes being more open and forthcoming with preorder info and not treat it like they're holding the secrets of the universe. THAT is squarely on Nintendo's shoulders.

The problem lies not only in how they're handling the pre-order process, but the timeline and the fact that we know now that this is a limited time item ( something that was not communicated with the NES mini till after the fact). September 29th through Xmas is a 3 month window of time, that's basically a breeding ground for scalpers when everyone knows that the production window is very finite. It pretty much leaves them no time to address various issues that can occur in production ( like an unexpected shortage of components). Could be anything....they're operating in a very small window of time leaving absolutely no margin for error or course correction, and it's certainly not enough time to get stock under control once you let the scalpers have their 15 mins of glory. Hell, the system was revealed two months ago. It's taken them TWO months just to get up preorders in NA when they were readily available in Europe and( I believe Japan). They now have one month to get their shit sorted out for the NA side. Good luck with that.

 

[MHWilliams]

Plus, you know what else sold out and was unavailable for some time? PS3, PS4, PS4 Pro, PSVR, PS Aim Controller... Even Microsoft has sold out of Xbox One X. Are these companies inept too?

At no point were any of the products you listed considered to be limited time products.

Again, this is Nintendo's problem and it's one they've made worse in this situation.

Here's a simple statement: "We will continue to ship the SNES Classic until [demand lessens/two years from now/etc]" One, you've taken a bite out of scalpers, because scalping makes profit on items that are rarity. More supply lowers rarity. The expectation of more supply lowers rarity.

Even on the pre-order situation, why are the SNES Classic pre-orders random and the Xbox One X and PS VR pre-orders were all on the same day? Because those platform holders worked with their retail partners. Nintendo can do this.

The problem is there are straightforward fixes to some of these problems and Nintendo has no in the past taken them and likely will not in the future.

 

[Ninjimbo]

The easy answer is to make more. In general tho, making these things probably requires you to make another pass at your internal logistics and forces you to ask a question about how much should you really invest in a system that is meant to be a specialty item with no real future. Nintendo has to make more Switches on top of making sure their games up to par with their standards since that is what is going to be paying their bill in the long term.

Most people don't care about the SNES Classic. More than likely, most of the people that do care, will get their hands on one and the people that don't will move on to whatever is the next hot thing. Nintendo fans, well, they'll just keeping being fans and forgive the little missteps because Nintendo is having a hell of a year. I can choose to be mad at what's going on with the Metroid amiibo thing, but will I really care if the game ends up being good? If I get one phenomenal playthrough out of it, I think that should satisfy me and most people.

So let the entitled people complain I say. They'll fall in line with everyone else once they realize the world moves on and it doesn't stop to satisfy the naggy complaints of journalists on the internet.

 

[Salmonax]

Sure, so tell me what that number is. The problem is finding that answer in the middle isn't as simple as people want to make it out to be.

They could manage preorders themselves, resulting in a precise number to target, even if delays for specific customers were required to reach it (like the Oculus launch).

It's hard to imagine an explanation other than this chaos being intentional to generate buzz and the limited stock being intentional to avoid cannibalizing future VC sales... whenever they get around to that on Switch.

 

[Sacul64GC]

The only way to help a bit with preorders would be to ask retailers to take only 1 item per person.
Even by doing that SNES Classic would probably selling out quickly.
Demand for NES Classic and SNES Classic is abnormally high compared to product of the same ilk (Sega, Atari, SNK, Intellivision yeah yeah I know they aren't handled by the original company but still).
Have you ever seen common people lining up at launch day for a retro plug & play console like it was a real console?
That's what happened with NES Classic.

GameStop does this already. Problem is this does not stop the dude that gets or pays 10 people to stand outside of ten different stores to each get one.

 

[Marty Chinn]

At no point were any of the products you listed considered to be limited time products.

That doesn't matter. The point is all of those products had preorders and they all sold out rather quickly and were hard to come by for some time. We're talking about the idea of companies being able to adequately meet demand right away and all the other companies don't do that and have preorders that sell out fast. Right now we're at the preorder stage of the lifespan, and other companies end up with the same results. Without any type of numbers of how many preorders were placed yesterday, isn't it a bit premature to be condemning Nintendo saying they didn't do anything to rectify the situation? Actually one correction, the Xbox One X is a limited time product.

Again, this is Nintendo's problem and it's one they've made worse in this situation.

Here's a simple statement: "We will continue to ship the SNES Classic until [demand lessens/two years from now/etc]" One, you've taken a bite out of scalpers, because scalping makes profit on items that are rarity. More supply lowers rarity. The expectation of more supply lowers rarity.

I've said I agree with you that their mistake is the limited window and that they should have a longer lifespan for the product. There's no dispute about this in my view and this is entirely on Nintendo. However, not all the problems are solely on Nintendo.

Even on the pre-order situation, why are the SNES Classic pre-orders random and the Xbox One X and PS VR pre-orders were all on the same day? Because those platform holders worked with their retail partners. Nintendo can do this.

What? Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target and Gamestop put their preorders all on the same day too. I certainly think they could do better about announcing a specific date when this will begin, but it definitely was all the same day.

The problem is there are straightforward fixes to some of these problems and Nintendo has no in the past taken them and likely will not in the future.

I'm not even remotely suggesting that they don't have problems that can be improved. I'm saying at this point in time, their product has sold out just like Microsoft's and Sony's products that are highly sought after when their preorders go up and are hard to obtain by even during the launch window. The fact that we even got preorders was a step up. We have nothing to go by to conclude that they didn't dramatically increase the number of units. Can anyone here state a number of how many preorders happened yesterday? Even a ballpark figure? It could be ten times the number of total NES Classic units but we don't know. Apple for several years with every iPhone launch would be sold out quickly at launch and was hard to come by for months too even though each year they significantly increased numbers available. We don't look at Apple as a failure. Without proper information, we can't even begin to know if Nintendo dropped the ball or not again.

 

[SirNinja]

The only solution is to make enough of them to fulfill demand (and then some). If everyone who wanted one was able to get one, no one would bother giving any scalper so much as the time of day.

But of course, this is Nintendo, who just have to be different, even if it means turning product launches into a circus from hell.

 

[Lord Ghirahim]

Take pre-orders on Nintendo's website (for limited products) 6+ months before release, limited to one or two per household. If you cancel the pre-order you're banned from pre-ordering future items for a year.

I've pre-ordered lots of stuff from the Nintendo Store and they always charged me immediately, even for products that lack a release date like the four Champion amiibo. Japan.

 

[mjc]

First post nailed it. Nintendo has some kind of weird fear of stock sitting in stores, I think. Nothing else explains it.

Oddly enough, they're overproducing shit amiibos and those are collecting dust on store shelves. Weird, huh?

 

[kingbean]

Preorder months in advance that require full payment. Then start the process of building the product to meet pre-order demand then set up a preorder system a month before release for people to get in if they missed the initial pre orders.

They produce the normal amount for non preorders on top of fulfilling demand for the paid for devices from previous months.

 

[MattKeil]

First post nailed it. Nintendo has some kind of weird fear of stock sitting in stores, I think. Nothing else explains it.

Oddly enough, they're overproducing shit amiibos and those are collecting dust on store shelves. Weird, huh?

I still think this is at least in part a reaction to the overproduction of the Animal Crossing amiibos. Clearly they were not expecting demand to be that low and it seems like they're constantly spooked about that now.

 

[mjc]

I still think this is at least in part a reaction to the overproduction of the Animal Crossing amiibos. Clearly they were not expecting demand to be that low and it seems like they're constantly spooked about that now.

I could see that. It also reinforces the fact that they may not be as in touch with their fans as they claim to be. Pretty much anyone could have told them not to manufacture boatloads of AC amiibos...now they're skiddish about stuff that actually could sell. (Fire Emblem SEs, BotW Master Editions, NES/SNES Classics, etc)

 

[MHWilliams]

That doesn't matter. The point is all of those products had preorders and they all sold out rather quickly and were hard to come by for some time. We're talking about the idea of companies being able to adequately meet demand right away and all the other companies don't do that and have preorders that sell out fast. Right now we're at the preorder stage of the lifespan, and other companies end up with the same results. Without any type of numbers of how many preorders were placed yesterday, isn't it a bit premature to be condemning Nintendo saying they didn't do anything to rectify the situation? Actually one correction, the Xbox One X is a limited time product.

It absolutely is the point.

The issue isn't just this pre-order situation. The issue will continue on. We're talking about addressing demand period, not just pre- and at-launch. A situation Nintendo has previously failed to address.

The Xbox One X Scorpio is limited time, the Xbox One X is not. And the Xbox One X went on pre-order on the same date and time across Microsoft's retail partners. They opened Sunday at the same time. Many retailers were sold out on Monday, but it's still available in some fashion from places like Target and GameStop. I'm oddly surprised at how high demand has been, but Microsoft is doing a good job of keeping the channel stocks and the Xbox One X will continue to be produced for years.

And perhaps it may be premature, but Nintendo's track record, with Amiibo and the NES Classic, has been less than adequate. Given the handling of the pre-orders in comparison to competitors and the previous sales situations, it's not outside of solid reasoning to say Nintendo has flubbed this one so far. That you're willing to offer them the benefit of the doubt is fine, but nothing here suggests that's particularly a more salient position.

I certainly think they could do better about announcing a specific date when this will begin, but it definitely was all the same day.

They could announce at all. They don't. Their communication is poor and has been for quite a long time.

Again, there are various way, completely within Nintendo's power, to address this situation. I'm not saying everything under the sun is under their control, but most of this situation falls squarely on the company.

 

[baconcow]

Sell them at a higher price.

This will only benefit scalpers, because they will then be selling the product to people already willing to overpay.

 

[Red Devil]

How can any company that wants to make a limited run product avoid scalpers?

They can't.

Specially if it's a desired product, but the matter is that they could likely simply make more of them however it's been pointed out that there's the issue of balance as in what should be the right amount between supplying demand and not having an excess of stock.

 

[Marty Chinn]

It absolutely is the point.

The issue isn't just this pre-order situation. The issue will continue on. We're talking about addressing demand period, not just pre- and at-launch. A situation Nintendo has previously failed to address.

But right now we're only in the pre-order phase and yet we're trying to jump to the conclusion as if we're at end of life and know how shipments went. We're jumping way ahead and the product isn't even out yet. I get the skepticism based on Nintendo's past, but there's not enough to go on here to make the conclusion they've done nothing to address what happened with the NES Classic. In fact if anything, the fact that almost everyone did preorders, we've already improved the situation to some degree.

The Xbox One X Scorpio is limited time, the Xbox One X is not. And the Xbox One X went on pre-order on the same date and time across Microsoft's retail partners. They opened Sunday at the same time. Many retailers were sold out on Monday, but it's still available in some fashion from places like Target and GameStop. I'm oddly surprised at how high demand has been, but Microsoft is doing a good job of keeping the channel stocks and the Xbox One X will continue to be produced for years.

Right, the Scorpio edition, but it's still limited and it sold out in most places within the same day. Target is the only place that didn't sell out and GameStop sold out but was able to open more orders again after they sold out. We haven't hit the phase yet to see if there will be more preorders with the SNES Classic and we have over a month to go to see if they do allow more preorders. But you can simply look at the Scorpio edition and ponder why Microsoft didn't allow more or make more? It's the same situation of preorders selling out within the day they're up.

And perhaps it may be premature, but Nintendo's track record, with Amiibo and the NES Classic, has been less than adequate. Given the handling of the pre-orders in comparison to competitors and the previous sales situations, it's not outside of solid reasoning to say Nintendo has flubbed this one so far. That you're willing to offer them the benefit of the doubt is fine, but nothing here suggests that's particularly a more salient position.

They could announce at all. They don't. Their communication is poor and has been for quite a long time.

They send towards the end of August didn't they? I agree they could be more specific but let's at least not ignore they gave a general time frame. I also agree they could have better communication.

Again, there are various way, completely within Nintendo's power, to address this situation. I'm not saying everything under the sun is under their control, but most of this situation falls squarely on the company.

Sure there are ways to improve, but without knowing how many sold yesterday, how many more will be available before launch, how many will be open to walk-ins on the day of, and how many and frequently those will be restocked, it's still way premature to say Nintendo has done nothing to address the issue. You can't ignore that the tools available and awareness of those tools haven't increased over the last year, nor that with more people being aware of this it also increases the demand too as more people hop on for whatever reason including more people trying to scalp. It's not like the demand for this stayed static to be at the same level as the NES Classic. Also with people being more paranoid about locking in, how many went to people ordering multiple units? We've seen in the various threads a number of people ordering multiple units. That alone also decreases supply against higher demand.

The bottom line is there are too many factors at play here, we're well more than a month away from launch, and there's way too little information to draw any type of conclusions on how Nintendo has tried to compensate from what they learned or didn't learn from the NES Classic. I get the thirst and how people are upset by not being able to get one but I'm willing to wait to hear more facts before I draw any conclusions. There are always people who aren't able to get a hot product at launch; what really matters is what happens post launch.

 

[jrDev]

Do what they did yesterday, it was all random and no one knew until they did. I think that way is reasonable. I don't think Nintendo should make millions of something that was meant to be limited.

Spoiler

I didn't get a preorder. :/

 

[Kaizer]

Make more

One & done. It's fucking crazy that the NES Classic currently costs $245 on Amazon. If Nintendo would just make more of them, they'd still be selling a good amount.

 

[LegendofLex]

Here's a simple statement: "We will continue to ship the SNES Classic until [demand lessens/two years from now/etc]" One, you've taken a bite out of scalpers, because scalping makes profit on items that are rarity. More supply lowers rarity. The expectation of more supply lowers rarity.

But that statement is a lie.

They won't, they have no intention to, this isn't their plan for the product. These consoles aren't being treated like sustainable product lines, because they don't exist to "satisfy demand": they exist to make people want to buy Nintendo stuff by cultivating demand that'll be directed to other Nintendo products. That's why Nintendo's treating them like marketing stunts rather than like products with a long-term future.

That's why comparing it to other games hardware makes for bad analogies. Other game hardware exists to lock people into a software ecosystem, and so companies are hell-bent at getting the hardware into the hands of as many people as possible and turning them into satisfied customers that keep buying more games. NES Classic and SNES Classic exist to generate interest in a software ecosystem; they don't have any potential for lock-in, and importantly a satisfied NES Classic customer is one that is satisfied with old games, not new ones.

I'm not saying this is what they should do with NES Classic and SNES Classic. I think they should be leveraged as one of the many ways you can buy their legacy games and reissued seasonally, with an eye at making them like reissues of old Disney movies: widely available for a little while, then gone until demand heats up again. But Nintendo clearly sees their back catalog as leverage to get people into their new products, more than they see it as a potential pillar of their business.

 

[RRockman]

What if retailers forced one per person and used a captcha before checking out?

 

[Ovid]

First post nailed it. Nintendo has some kind of weird fear of stock sitting in stores, I think. Nothing else explains it.

Oddly enough, they're overproducing shit amiibos and those are collecting dust on store shelves. Weird, huh?

I blame Virtual Boy for this.

 

[Tavernacle12]

It's worth noting that part of the reason it's so rare is that everyone thinks it will be rare. It's the same deal with Amiibos. When I worked in the department that sold them, once an Amiibo actually got a big reprint (Villager, Jigglypuff, Captain Falcon, etc) they'd sit on the shelves whereas when they were thought of as rare they'd be snapped up in seconds.

The two best ways to solve the problem are:
1. Direct Nintendo purchasing, in which everyone who preorders is built and shipped one.
2. Nintendo says and stands by that they will continue to produce them until they are non-profitable, and to prove it they bring back the NES Classic too, until both are as common as the Flashback consoles.

 

[daman824]

But that statement is a lie.

They won't, they have no intention to, this isn't their plan for the product. These consoles aren't being treated like sustainable product lines, because they don't exist to "satisfy demand": they exist to make people want to buy Nintendo stuff by cultivating demand that'll be directed to other Nintendo products. That's why Nintendo's treating them like marketing stunts rather than like products with a long-term future.

That's why comparing it to other games hardware makes for bad analogies. Other game hardware exists to lock people into a software ecosystem, and so companies are hell-bent at getting the hardware into the hands of as many people as possible and turn them into satisfied customers that keep buying more games. NES Classic and SNES Classic exist to generate interest in a software ecosystem; they don't have any potential for lock-in, and importantly a satisfied NES Classic customer is one that is satisfied with old games, not new ones.

Then that's what they need to start telling people!

If it truly is a limited time item that they will only produce a certain amount of, they need to tell their fans how many units they are expecting to produce, how many will be up for preorder, and how many will be in retail stores. THEN they need to promise that they will do their best to get games like star fox 2 on a (yet unannounced) switch virtual console as soon as possible.

INSTEAD, Nintendo tells their fans they were caught off guard last time, and that they will substantially increase production. and they will do their best to ensure everyone who wants one can get one. But that's obviously not something they care about.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Provide the supply to match the demand. Worked well for WiiU.

 

[m.i.s.]

Then that's what they need to start telling people!

If it truly is a limited time item that they will only produce a certain amount of, they need to tell their fans how many units they are expecting to produce, how many will be up for preorder, and how many will be in retail stores. THEN they need to promise that they will do their best to get games like star fox 2 on a (yet unannounced) switch virtual console as soon as possible.

INSTEAD, Nintendo tells their fans they were caught off guard last time, and that they will substantially increase production. and they will do their best to ensure everyone who wants one can get one. But that's obviously not something they care about.

When asked, someone inside N said they couldn't understand why NES Classic Mini was so popular; that's like saying a company doesn't understand why their own product and {groundbreaking IP like SMB, SMB3, Zelda, Metroid etc} is so popular. That sprite-based games are no longer produced and for which there is still a healthy market. That's a slap in the face to their customers and their own design and creative staff.

And no one who wished to buy a £70 / $80 system will find a palatable alternative in £280 / $300 general purpose gaming device.

Shitty company is shitty. When will it be time to award N the following.

 

[old manatee]

Nobody's ever scalping Cheerios in the Big Food parking lot because there's always 10 boxes on the shelf.

 

[Bowl0l]

Mandatory oline activation in order to play.
Activation code is tied to one single credit card info.

 

[polyh3dron]

Well not making your limited product available for sale in the middle of the night would be a good start.

 

[funroll-loops]

They could force retailers to take on more stock. Let Gamestop know that if their SNES Classic orders are really that low, Nintendo might as well cut their Switch shipments to match.

They could also work with or bribe local authorities to pass laws against scalpiing Nintendo products. Or lock the systems to some sort of online account as soon as you order them online, to make them less useful for resale.

 

[KormaChameleon]

Simple. Make more.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

Hopefully they find a way soon - but probably a queue system and a custom Captcha system. If people understand it's to combat bots, they'll accept annoying Captcha's.

Tomorrowland (a music concert) has a queue system but still gets hit by bots during it's presale i think but it's a start.

Note though that it's better to have this stuff sold straight from Nintendo then.

 

[dragonyeuw]

They could force retailers to take on more stock. Let Gamestop know that if their SNES Classic orders are really that low, Nintendo might as well cut their Switch shipments to match.

They could also work with or bribe local authorities to pass laws against scalpiing Nintendo products. Or lock the systems to some sort of online account as soon as you order them online, to make them less useful for resale.

I don't know about that, but I'd like to see ebay crack down on the obvious scalping of items that aren't even available yet. How is something like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SNES-Mini-C...158671?hash=item283df5014f:g:fVIAAOSwxzBZoKjy

allowed? Confirmed preorder? I wouldn't put much faith in this whole thing until the product is in your physical possession.

 

[ViciousDS]

easy......allow unlimited pre-orders and make that based on demand....not fucking rocket science. Everyone who truly wants anything from Nintendo will pre-order and then you have a bit extra for shelves to chill in stores.

Scalpers won't bother if they know everyone can get one