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Nintendo Classic Mini - NES Coming on November 11th (30 NES games)

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I would never wait outside for 5 hours for a product like this, so ya, it's hard to empathize. Look, I get it, it's a crappy situation but shit happens and this guy got hooked up. That's life. Please don't feel bad for me.

That's irrelevant. Neither would I. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who would. If you are truly unable to do so, that's a problem.
 

MrNelson

Banned
I managed to snag two today (TRU and Frys in store pickup). One is for me and the other is an xmas gift. Many thanks to the gaffers who shared these links and helped me get these in the wee hours of the morning!

How did you get it at Fry's? I wasn't able to find it on their site last night or this morning (or now for that matter).
 
I feel like Nintendo simply under estimated the demand for retro. My hope is this demand causes them to make more retro items like a retro SNES.

They can't be that clueless. Have they seen the prices for old NES/SNES nowadays? The whole purpose of the virtual console is playing on retro nostalgia. And surely they've heard the buzz for this thing upon announcing it.
 
I don't think it's entirely fair to compare this to Amiibos or the GameCube adapter. Yes, similar situations but the NES classic is meant for everybody. Amiibo was multiple charcters and the the adapter was for only 1 game. Mostly for the Nintendo fans.

This seems perhaps playing safe or testing the waters for Christmas and Black Friday shopping. I'm going to hope their available for everybody in a few weeks. It would be great to spend Christmas with the family and be playing Classic NES games while we wait for the turkey and Tamales.

If anything I'm shocked of the high demand myself.
 

gspec

Member
The demand for this will not last as long as some think. Once the hardcore nintendo fans and resellers get their hands on them. The demand will drop. This is why nintendo is being cautious with supply. They don't want to be burden with too many sitting on shelves.
 
The demand for this will not last as long as some think. Once the hardcore nintendo fans and resellers get their hands on them. The demand will drop. This is why nintendo is being cautious with supply. They don't want to be burden with too many sitting on shelves.

The demand isn't going to drop anytime soon. People who haven't played a video game in decades know about this product.
 
I managed to snag two today (TRU and Frys in store pickup). One is for me and the other is an xmas gift. Many thanks to the gaffers who shared these links and helped me get these in the wee hours of the morning!

Fuck, I always forget about Fry's. They were the last place in the entirety of Arizona to still have GameCube controller adapters in stock, by several hours. Probably the same for the NES Classic...
 

AgeEighty

Member
I would never wait outside for 5 hours for a product like this, so ya, it's hard to empathize. Look, I get it, it's a crappy situation but shit happens and this guy got hooked up. That's life. Please don't feel bad for me.

OK, so then imagine it's something you would wait five hours for.

You're right that "shit happens" but if you are the cause of that shit and you brag about it, you should expect people to be unhappy with you.
 

7roject28

Member
They can't be that clueless. Have they seen the prices for old NES/SNES nowadays? The whole purpose of the virtual console is playing on retro nostalgia. And surely they've heard the buzz for this thing upon announcing it.

Maybe because there's emulators and those other KO consoles.
 

StewboaT_

Member
OK, so then imagine it's something you would wait five hours for.

You're right that "shit happens" but if you are the cause of that shit and you brag about it, you should expect people to be unhappy with you.

Honestly, I can't think of anything I'd wait 5 hours outside for. Fair enough on the bragging part though.
 

Kaladin

Member
I would never wait outside for 5 hours for a product like this, so ya, it's hard to empathize. Look, I get it, it's a crappy situation but shit happens and this guy got hooked up. That's life. Please don't feel bad for me.

Imagine going to a restaurant and seeing people who arrived after you get their food first, and it looks similar to what you ordered so you can't say their order was easier to make.

How would you feel then?
 
More like not producing enough that makes it seem like demand is so high.

If they don't want me to buy their product then I won't.

I don't see how they could have predicted how many to make, what if no one cared about 30 old school NES games? In this smartphone games generation?

I keep reading Nintendo planned this but how could they know this exactly?

What is a good number to produce without taking losses.
 

MisterHero

Super Member
Yeah that's totally fair. I was 14 when the Wii came out, and didn't have any financial ability to purchase it until a year after release, just remembered that EVERYONE in my town who wanted one said it was impossible to find. Just reminded me of this predicament, I wasn't sure if my assessment was true or not. I remember that you couldn't find a Wii for months after initial release, and purchasing one in August the year after release was still a crapshoot in my town. I had to call stores to see if stuff was in stock and all that.
I get that man. It just turns out Wii was one of the actual success stories. They had more supply than their rivals.

wiki said:
Since its launch, monthly sales numbers of the console have generally been higher than its competitors around the globe. According to the NPD Group, the Wii sold more units in the United States than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 combined in the first half of 2007.[184] This lead is even larger in the Japanese market, where it currently leads in total sales (having outsold both consoles by factors of 2:1[185] to 6:1[186] nearly every week from its launch to November 2007).[187] In Australia the Wii broke the record set by the Xbox 360 and became the fastest-selling game console in Australian history.[188]

On July 11, 2007, Nintendo warned that the Wii would remain in short supply throughout that calendar year.[190] In December, Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that Nintendo was producing approximately 1.8 million Wii consoles each month.[191] Some UK stores still had a shortage of consoles in March 2007,[192] demand still outpaced supply in the United States in June 2007,[193] and the console was "selling out almost as quickly as it hits retail shelves" in Canada in April 2008.[194][195] In October 2008 Nintendo announced that between October and December the Wii would have its North American supplies increased considerably from 2007 levels,[196] while producing 2.4 million Wii units a month worldwide (compared to 1.6 million per month in 2007).[

I have no real knowledge about Nintendo and intentional scarcity, it's just that Wii wasn't one of them.

It's a sad thought that Nintendo possibly thinks they have to undersupply to get people to talk about their stuff.
 

rav

Member
Imagine going to a restaurant and seeing people who arrived after you get their food first, and it looks similar to what you ordered so you can't say their order was easier to make.

How would you feel then?

heh, in the case of amazon though, it's like this:
Everyone got there at the same time and they couldn't even open the door, but it still 'appeared' to have more room inside, so people kept pushin!
(Goodbye servers for a bit :) )
 

StewboaT_

Member
Imagine going to a restaurant and seeing people who arrived after you get their food first, and it looks similar to what you ordered so you can't say their order was easier to make.

How would you feel then?

Must've been very important people. I'd order another beer and relax ;)
 

Persona7

Banned
Seems likely Nintendo anticipated supply constraint with the refusal to allow pre-orders. Nintendo is known for artificial scarcity but I think they had other issues with this product.
 

KaYotiX

Banned
I don't see how they could have predicted how many to make, what if no one cared about 30 old school NES games? In this smartphone games generation?

I keep reading Nintendo planned this but how could they know this exactly?

What is a good number to produce without taking losses.

IMO if they made half a million units it would of sold them all no problem.

Do we even know what initial numbers were?
 

BorntoPlay

Member
how is it possible I didn't even see the page available anytime and some guys got 2, 3, 4 o 5 of these and other got the fanciness of getting the controller even...

oh well, gotta continue watching... someday... someday

i take this snap for posterity...

yb1CoAW.png
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
I got as far as "add to cart" and then entered a buggy shitshow spiral.


However I am not alone as it now has hundreds of negative reviews, presumably all about availability.
 

KaYotiX

Banned
I got as far as "add to cart" and then entered a buggy shitshow spiral.


However I am not alone as it now has hundreds of negative reviews, presumably all about availability.

Yeah I was so hopeful when I saw add to Cart and then...nothing ..... Over and over again.:(

Our Target and Best Buy had 11 total.....severely under produced
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
BTW, a few people in here are asking "How would they even know how many to make?"

It's not exactly guesswork - and it's a really challenging science, but they take data from pre-orders, store inquiries, google searches, consultancies and dozens of other vectors. They would certainly have at least a trendline to follow.

Maybe it's just tricky to make, or maybe this is marketing for a Black Friday/Holiday restock.
 
I don't see how they could have predicted how many to make, what if no one cared about 30 old school NES games? In this smartphone games generation?

I keep reading Nintendo planned this but how could they know this exactly?

What is a good number to produce without taking losses.

Yeah. I rarely understand the artificial scarcity argument. I mean, I guess in some very narrow cases it might make some sense. Further, if you've got more inventory at the ready you can ship very quickly, I could maybe understand the ploy. It could potentially make some fence-sitters buy immediately when you ship resupply batch one and two if they see one, for instance.

But really, unless you've got some sort of profit-sharing going on in the resale market it makes very little sense to me. You're not making more money selling fewer units. If there's clear demand and you can meet that demand, you might as well sell as many units as you can for as long as people are interested in buying them.
 

Laws00

Member
I would never wait outside for 5 hours for a product like this, so ya, it's hard to empathize. Look, I get it, it's a crappy situation but shit happens and this guy got hooked up. That's life. Please don't feel bad for me.

At a wal mart that I got mine at a lady was there since 4 am in the morning

Funny enough I took my sweet time had breakfast at wal mart and made a 5 minute detour. And Wal Mart wasn't even on my radar in getting one. I just went there on a whim and I happened to be the 6th person in line before the door opened 20 or maybe 15 minutes before the store opened lol
 
Clicked add to cart and was taken to a page with an empty cart. Then I got a dead page.

For some reason, I managed to snag a controller. Guess I'll have something to look at.
 

jwhit28

Member
So I wonder what Nintendo's response to this will be? Will we start seeing more consoles or handhelds including a nice pack of VC games? I wouldn't mind a NES flavored 2DS with 30 NES games. Same with SNES+New 3DS and 5-10 SNES games.
 

MoosiferX

Member
I know the eBay prices have been pointed out a bit, but geez. if you go to sold listings on eBay, sort highest price sold to lowest and list 200 per page, it's all units that have sold for $300 or more. o_O
 

StewboaT_

Member
At a wal mart that I got mine at a lady was there since 4 am in the morning

Funny enough I took my sweet time had breakfast at wal mart and made a 5 minute detour. And Wal Mart wasn't even on my radar in getting one. I just went there on a whim and I happened to be the 6th person in line before the door opened 20 or maybe 15 minutes before the store opened lol

Stealth brag? Lol, jk...well played!
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
So I wonder what Nintendo's response to this will be? Will we start seeing more consoles or handhelds including a nice pack of VC games? I wouldn't mind a NES flavored 2DS with 30 NES games. Same with SNES+New 3DS and 5-10 SNES games.

I could see a Vol. 2 of the NES mini, but when this already has 2/3rds of Castlevania, all the Marios, all the Zeldas, and arguably the best of the six Mega Man titles, I honestly don't know what you could possibly do to follow this up.
 

MisterHero

Super Member
So I wonder what Nintendo's response to this will be? Will we start seeing more consoles or handhelds including a nice pack of VC games? I wouldn't mind a NES flavored 2DS with 30 NES games. Same with SNES+New 3DS and 5-10 SNES games.
Well the US version does have the "Classics" label. Though producing anything from N64-later would be costly. lol
 
I could see a Vol. 2 of the NES mini, but when this already has 2/3rds of Castlevania, all the Marios, all the Zeldas, and arguably the best of the six Mega Man titles, I honestly don't know what you could possibly do to follow this up.

They would probably just keep 2/3 of the titles and add 10 new ones. Nintendo collectors would have to get each one to get all the games.
 

AgeEighty

Member
Yeah. I rarely understand the artificial scarcity argument. I mean, I guess in some very narrow cases it might make some sense. Further, if you've got more inventory at the ready you can ship very quickly, I could maybe understand the ploy. It could potentially make some fence-sitters buy immediately when you ship resupply batch one and two if they see one, for instance.

But really, unless you've got some sort of profit-sharing going on in the resale market it makes very little sense to me. You're not making more money selling fewer units. If there's clear demand and you can meet that demand, you might as well sell as many units as you can for as long as people are interested in buying them.

Exactly. They didn't have any way of knowing if this would be a hit or not; product demand is one of the hardest things to predict. If they'd made millions more of them and it had flopped, they'd all end up in a landfill and it would have been far more financially devastating to Nintendo than temporarily making their customers unhappy about supply.

If you're making a new kind of product you've never made before, you conservatively estimate demand, make enough to cover that on the low end so you're not totally screwed if they don't sell, and if the demand is higher, you can always make more.
 
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