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So how bad is the Switch stock situation?

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dano1

A Sheep
National commercial during NCAA Tournament 2 hours ago. Checked Amazon directly after. No Stock!!
Nintendo fails again and again and again....
 

Arkam

Member
Has there ever been a stocking situation worse than this? Jesus Christ Nintendo.

Yes, much worse. Do you remember the Wii? or DS Lite situations? Was months before they were on shelves (for more than minutes). I wanted to get a Pink DS Lite as a gift months after it released and only was able to score one via a GameStop manager I knew who held one for me.

Did my big box store loop yesterday looking for a Switch carry case and saw the same barren landscape as last weekend. Only thing in stock are grey joycons and rubber condoms. Even the amiibo stocks are sad right now. But I am sure this will all be resolved in the next 60 days... well maybe not on the amiibo front. Dont see the OoT Link coming back anytime soon :(
 

sirap

Member
I just got mine this afternoon in Malaysia, just walked by a store and they were selling it. I really just got lucky though, the stock situation is pretty touch-and-go here. Couple of other shops I know of are taking pre-orders for the mid April batch.

Same here. I told myself I wasn't gonna buy one but a dinky store in Penang had Neons in stock for a reasonable price (still, fuck Maxsoft for that bullshit bundle).

Feel sorry for folks not willing to pay the markup though. Pre-order situation is almost as bad as the PS4 Pro.
 

bumpkin

Member
Has anyone seen a set of blue Joy-Cons in the wild? They seem to be sold out online everywhere and I really don't want to pay the third party seller tax for a set.
 

j_abdi

Neo Member
Puerto Rico here. Our only options at retail are Walmart, Toy R Us and Best Buy. Target doesn't exist here and GameStop left about 2 years ago. Called every Walmart and Toys R Us in the island. Nothing. Nada. Best Buy wouldn't even say if they have, but I'm going with they don't. I think I'll just bite the bullet and order from Amazon UK/DE/ES...
 

Persona7

Banned
Yes, much worse. Do you remember the Wii? or DS Lite situations? Was months before they were on shelves (for more than minutes). I wanted to get a Pink DS Lite as a gift months after it released and only was able to score one via a GameStop manager I knew who held one for me.

Did my big box store loop yesterday looking for a Switch carry case and saw the same barren landscape as last weekend. Only thing in stock are grey joycons and rubber condoms. Even the amiibo stocks are sad right now. But I am sure this will all be resolved in the next 60 days... well maybe not on the amiibo front. Dont see the OoT Link coming back anytime soon :(

The problem is that those devices were getting constant shipments. The Switch got one shipment for launch and nothing for three+ weeks.
 
I was able to return DDR from the Gamestop bundle and pre order Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in full. I am guessing it depends on what Gamestop or get your bundle from as it might vary from store to store.
 

robErob

Neo Member
Gamestop never surprises me. I went into today to trade in a ipod and a lady came in to return her switch because she needed the cash back. Keep in mind the lady opened and used the system and they still let her get her full refund. I might be wrong but i thought gs return policy did not allow you to return consoles.

Anyway i asked if they would sell it, they said yeah. I said how much is the pre owned price for the switch. They said that they are going to sell in as new.. I said but its open. They said that she only used it for a little while....

I started to press the issue but I'll wait until the system matures a little bit.

Moral of the story is that when you buy from gs as new, you never know if its really new. Another reason why i hate to shop there but trade ins keep me coming back.
 

Persona7

Banned
Gamestop never surprises me. I went into today to trade in a ipod and a lady came in to return her switch because she needed the cash back. Keep in mind the lady opened and used the system and they still let her get her full refund. I might be wrong but i thought gs return policy did not allow you to return consoles.

Anyway i asked if they would sell it, they said yeah. I said how much is the pre owned price for the switch. They said that they are going to sell in as new.. I said but its open. They said that she only used it for a little while....

I started to press the issue but I'll wait until the system matures a little bit.

Moral of the story is that when you buy from gs as new, you never know if its really new. Another reason why i hate to shop there but trade ins keep me coming back.

It's the same with any store though. Nintendo doesn't seal their hardware so anyone can buy something and play it for 29 days and then clean it up and return it without any issues. Then it goes back on the shelf and someone else buys it and might never know it was used. GS is not supposed to take it in though if they know it's been opened so that is weird.
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
Saw some pro controllers at an otherwise barren Walmart, so that was neat. Almost bought one but I'm waiting to get some reward dollars at Best Buy to bring the price down a bit.
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
It's the same with any store though. Nintendo doesn't seal their hardware so anyone can buy something and play it for 29 days and then clean it up and return it without any issues. Then it goes back on the shelf and someone else buys it and might never know it was used. GS is not supposed to take it in though if they know it's been opened so that is weird.

I'm pretty sure most other companies don't take used things and sell as new.
 

Quote

Member
It's the same with any store though. Nintendo doesn't seal their hardware so anyone can buy something and play it for 29 days and then clean it up and return it without any issues. Then it goes back on the shelf and someone else buys it and might never know it was used. GS is not supposed to take it in though if they know it's been opened so that is weird.
During the return process most retailers will ask you questions that are specifically aimed to determine which "inventory bucket" that product ends up in, sellable (sold as new), return to warehouse, open box ect.

If a customer lies, because they often feel like "using a thing" will impact the return policy, that's one thing. However, Gamestop in this situation, because they're obviously aware it was used, should not be marking that unit as new.
 
I ordered my Wii in december and got it early march. Constant shipments my ass.
Sorry but the Switch launch and Wii craze phenomenon are nothing alike. Nintendo could have certainly kept up with demand if they had wanted to. Three weeks+ without a single restock in most major retailers for what is almost certainly managable demand is ridiculous.
 

Kar L

Member
The problem is that those devices were getting constant shipments. The Switch got one shipment for launch and nothing for three+ weeks.
What do you mean 3+ weeks? lol. The Switch has been out for 16 days. It came out on Friday, March 3. Now GS is getting restocks this week on Wednesday.
 

Kebiinu

Banned
Any idea how big this second shipment will be? I have a bunch of people interested, but no idea when it'll be in shelves. I know GameStop is getting more on the 22nd, but will it just be that retailer?
 
Sorry but the Switch launch and Wii craze phenomenon are nothing alike. Nintendo could have certainly kept up with demand if they had wanted to. Three weeks+ without a single restock in most major retailers for what is almost certainly managable demand is ridiculous.

It's two weeks and there's a shipment apparently coming this week.

Nintendo planned to ship, what, two million? Three? by the end of March. They sold through whatever they had at launch and the rest of that figure is coming by the end of March. Maybe they didn't expect a total sell-out in the first weekend.

And no, they can't hit the turbo button at the factory after launch weekend and get more units out in two weeks. It takes months for a production ramp-up to show up at retail.
 

Oxymoron

Member
Sorry but the Switch launch and Wii craze phenomenon are nothing alike. Nintendo could have certainly kept up with demand if they had wanted to. Three weeks+ without a single restock in most major retailers for what is almost certainly managable demand is ridiculous.

Three weeks might be reasonable, we don't know the logistical details. It takes 2-4 weeks to ship things on a cargo from China. It's entirely possible that Nintendo responded to higher-than-anticipated demand by shifting some stock from sea shipping to air. You could see something like:

Pre-February production: ship by boat to US (arrive in time for launch).
Early-to-late February production: ship by air (arrives in time to bolster launch numbers)
Early march production: ship by boat, arrive in late March.

In which case the "gap" in shipment would be explained not by Nintendo slacking off or whatever, but by them scrambling to get more units on the shelf at launch.
 
I got my wii about three weeks after it came out only because I was in the store when UPS dropped the shipment off. I missed the previous weekly shipment.
The Wii was unique because the demand actually grew over time as people saw the console in action and tried Wii sports over people's houses etc.
 
Any idea how big this second shipment will be? I have a bunch of people interested, but no idea when it'll be in shelves. I know GameStop is getting more on the 22nd, but will it just be that retailer?

Haven't heard anything about retailers other than GameStop but it seems like gamestops stock will be pretty limited. I wouldn't expect a single store to get 50 units or anything.
 
I know how you feel friend, I have to maintain a full time job and go to school full time, actually the most play time I get is probably at work during down time.
This guy gets it. Sorry if I offended anyone else, that wasn't my intention. It's just that life gets in the way and I haven't been able to enjoy my own birthday present in over two weeks. The gf felt bad because I had to sell off my old Nintendo games to pay the bills and now that we're a little better off, she saw this as a great opportunity to treat me. I finally just got through the first shrine. Oh, and if anyone is looking for 3DS XL systems, the Lake Geneva WI store had one Pikachu and one red the other day as well as Blue joy cons (poster above). That was earlier in the week however, they could be gone at this point.
 
Nintendo NYC is the place to go for Switch accessories, apparently.

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I feel like a lot of people don't grasp the fact that manufacturing of something, especially a piece of tech like the Switch, doesn't occur over night and they're not able to ship across the world in a few days. It's been less than a month since the console launched and they obviously underestimated how popular it would be (rightfully so after the abysmal 3DS and Wii U launches). Give it a couple more weeks and we'll have another shipment. Get some perspective into how manufacturing actually work before whining that you can't get a hot ticket item.
 

Crazyorloco

Member
Sorry but the Switch launch and Wii craze phenomenon are nothing alike. Nintendo could have certainly kept up with demand if they had wanted to. Three weeks+ without a single restock in most major retailers for what is almost certainly managable demand is ridiculous.

Where are you located? Best Buy and GameStop have been getting weekly (low) shipments in NYC. They last about 10 minutes, but it's restocked.
 

Persona7

Banned
I feel like a lot of people don't grasp the fact that manufacturing of something, especially a piece of tech like the Switch, doesn't occur over night and they're not able to ship across the world in a few days. It's been less than a month since the console launched and they obviously underestimated how popular it would be (rightfully so after the abysmal 3DS and Wii U launches). Give it a couple more weeks and we'll have another shipment. Get some perspective into how manufacturing actually work before whining that you can't get a hot ticket item.

They started manufacturing these months ago and should have a steady supply line.
 
I feel like a lot of people don't grasp the fact that manufacturing of something, especially a piece of tech like the Switch, doesn't occur over night and they're not able to ship across the world in a few days. It's been less than a month since the console launched and they obviously underestimated how popular it would be (rightfully so after the abysmal 3DS and Wii U launches). Give it a couple more weeks and we'll have another shipment. Get some perspective into how manufacturing actually work before whining that you can't get a hot ticket item.

If they don't get shipments settled down by May then Nintendo truly is crap at distribution. Is it even easy to find the NES classic in stores now?
 

thatJohann

Member
Where are you located? Best Buy and GameStop have been getting weekly (low) shipments in NYC. They last about 10 minutes, but it's restocked.

Say what? I'm in NYC and haven't seen new inventory in either Best Buy or GameStop since launch. Hoping that changes this week! :)
 
If they don't get shipments settled down by May then Nintendo truly is crap at distribution. Is it even easy to find the NES classic in stores now?
Yes, if in 2 months after launch they don't have a better supply situation than now, then definitely it's right to question what the hell Nintendo is doing. But it hasn't even been 3 weeks since the thing launched, so I feel like it's still premature to judge the situation.
As far as the NES classic goes, I'm honestly not sure what their motivations are with that. I ended up getting one off Amazon a couple weeks ago when they had a restock, so it's not impossible to get, but that thing has definitely been stupidly limited in supply. But in the end, none of us actually really know what's the deal.
 

DR2K

Banned
I feel like a lot of people don't grasp the fact that manufacturing of something, especially a piece of tech like the Switch, doesn't occur over night and they're not able to ship across the world in a few days. It's been less than a month since the console launched and they obviously underestimated how popular it would be (rightfully so after the abysmal 3DS and Wii U launches). Give it a couple more weeks and we'll have another shipment. Get some perspective into how manufacturing actually work before whining that you can't get a hot ticket item.

Yet your post doesn't shine an iota of a light on the manufacturing process.

Not really sure how you plan 1 shipment for launch and leave it at that for 3 weeks. Then again Nintendo is obviously new to the hardware business as it's a reoccurring theme for them.
 
Yet your post doesn't shine an iota of a light on the manufacturing process.

Not really sure how you plan 1 shipment for launch and leave it at that for 3 weeks. Then again Nintendo is obviously new to the hardware business as it's a reoccurring theme for them.
Hey, I never claimed to know anything of the manufacturing process. Like I said in my previous post, no one here actually knows what's going on, I just know what's realistic to expect from Nintendo.
 
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