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5,000 people line up to grab a switch in japan

HardRojo

Member
Man, I really wish Nintendo hadn't been as conservative with supply, I wonder how much they would've sold by now if the stock issues weren't such a common occurrence for the Switch. Edit: With that said, it's really nice to see Nintendo performing well with the Switch.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Splatoon-2-Kirin-Mets-Grapefruit.jpg


Cool.

Man how cool must it be if you're one of the original Splatoon designers?
 

MomoQca

Member
The population of Tokyo is around 4x that of the US’s biggest city.

Don't want to be that guy, but that's wrong. Tokyo's population was at 9.273 million in 2015 while NYC was at 8.538 million as of last year. Tokyo and NYC are quite close in terms of population size.
 

ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
Isn't the Switch supposed to be like 30,000円? These scalper prices are still so high at like 45000. Nintendo is embarrassing lol.

Should have bought some from the US and brought them back here to sell.
 

Drain You

Member
I wish it were fun. Right now its insanely hot as all Japanese summers tend to be, so waiting in line would be a pain. Also at least in my area you never even are given a clue when to go and wait. Its like almost you have to have a sixth sense just to know when the lotteries are. Still hopefully Nintendo can do something soon. Last time it was this bad for them stock wise I can remember here was the DS lite days

Damn, well I'm sorry to hear that. Almost makes me feel better that I can't even afford a Switch right now.

Also as far as stock goes, I know people think Nintendo is notorious for limiting supply and whatnot, whether thats true or not I don't know, but I really do believe they are going to crank out as many Switches as possible this first year especially. Atleast I hope that to be true.
 

D.Lo

Member
Don't want to be that guy, but that's wrong. Tokyo's population was at 9.273 million in 2015 while NYC was at 8.538 million as of last year. Tokyo and NYC are quite close in terms of population size.
A more directly comparable population for Tokyo would be the greater Tokyo area, including Yokohama and various other cities that are only 30ish minutes from central Tokyo. Which is 35 million.

NYC you would probably add Jersey city and other places in a similar way, but it will never get near 35 million.
 

AllenShrz

Member
Makes me wonder how many are intended for resell, I have yet to see one switch in the wild.

Yahoo auctions is flooded with switches.
 

ranmafan

Member
Makes me wonder how many are intended for resell, I have yet to see one switch in the wild.

Yahoo auctions is flooded with switches.

Yeah it's psvr all over again with the auctions. And even worse with the Line scams and all. It's a mess and it just makes people angry over the long term. But most will just say "it can't be helped" and be in line again another day until they get lucky or just give up and pay the scalpers while Nintendo just gives simple apologies and promises to do their best to get more supply while people still wait in line.

Interestingly I did actually once back in like April/May see switch in stock on a normal day at a local Yamada Denki. Was shocked at that. Had I had the money then I probably would've gotten it,even though I'm planning on waiting for Fire Emblems release to buy one, but I didn't so I passsed on it. Now wherever I go I see signs saying, we're sold out and we have no idea when we are getting more in. When I see the numbers sold each week I do wonder where are they going, cause they certainly aren't coming to my area of the country it seems.

The sucky thing is this has been the pattern all year. First psvr, then the famitsu mini, then switch. I can't even imagine what the super famicom mini situation will be like. Heck you can't even get those little toys for the snack world game coming out this week. It's a mess trying to get the cool things in japan these days. At least Dragon Quest thankfully didn't have supply problems.
 
It is in stock everywhere in Australia should I be buying them to keep for the impeding drought ?
Yes, please buy them all and then take a photo with them in the back of a truck. We need an updated pic for Switch (the lady with all the Wii U systems in the back of her truck).
 

Terrell

Member
Eh, that's slowly changing to promote gift giving
(stimulate the economy)
.

If I understand correctly, though, the gift exchange is geared primarily toward couples, where families still do their giving at New Year in the form of cash money to children.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
In Japan? It should sell better than the Wii, which wasn't that big a success.



Is probably going to beat the Wii in Japan.
Only in Japan.
BTW, Wii was a very successfull home console in Japan.
Had a weird trajectory but the incredible initial sales lead it up to more than 13 million console sold
Neither ps3 or ps4 will beat it (ps4 is at 5 millions right now after ffxv, dqxi, slim, pro and so on
 
You won't see a line like that in the USA.

The problem with the US is that we have this weird "First come first serve" thing where everyone's running around like headless chickens. I always hated going to stores on Christmas or Black Friday since buying online is a lot less of a hassle. I feel like the lottery idea would be much better. Also, if we did do lotteries, then yes, you would see lines like that. It's a lot less organized when people just waltz into a store hoping it would be in stock throughout the day, when you could go for an in-store lottery at a specific time then everyone would line up.
 

Ottaro

Member
MHXX ain't nothin. It's a late port of an upgrade of a spinoff, when the next real main MH has been announced for elsewhere. Splatoon will be the driver until Mario, maybe beyond.

You underestimate Monster Hunter fans.
 

lupinko

Member
If I understand correctly, though, the gift exchange is geared primarily toward couples, where families still do their giving at New Year in the form of cash money to children.

Nope, they're targeting families now too.

I know because I work and live here.
 
The population of Tokyo is around 4x that of the US’s biggest city.

Off topic: Where are you getting this false info? Tokyo does not have 4 times more people than NYC.

But by contrast Japan is a smaller country and obviously has bigger lines. But it's reasonable to think right now that Japan has higher demand than the US, which it is also sold out in most areas.
 

ranmafan

Member
Off topic: Where are you getting this false info? Tokyo does not have 4 times more people than NYC.

But by contrast Japan is a smaller country and obviously has bigger lines. But it's reasonable to think right now that Japan has higher demand than the US, which it is also sold out in most areas.

I think the number they are using is the population of the Tokyo metropolitan area which is almost 38milion vs New York City by itself being over 8 million. But if that's the numbers being used it's not a fair comparison as the New York metropolitan population is 20.2 million. So yeah not 4 times bigger. It's just below twice the size. Although it always feels like there is more than 38 million in the Tokyo area.
 

ranmafan

Member
is that the Mets baseball team's font?

It looks similar could just be the name the orange does not help

I've always wondered that myself. It's been used for decades and does look very very close but slightly different. I need to look up the history of that logo sometime since I've always wondered about it.The Hiroshima carp and cincinatti reds c logos also are very close too but slightly different.
 

Neff

Member
Somehow I don't think there's much competition for what the Switch is in Japan, because no one else in Japan has Splatoon and Dragon Quest in a single package.

Not only that, but what is there to 'move on' to? Other platforms have been on the market for a long time and there's not much on the horizon.
 

wvan13

Member
Man, hard to believe these are still hard to find. We had 3 sit on a table during busy-as-hell Tax Free weekend at my local Best Buy. All saturday they just sat and nobody got them, until right at 9 and one guy bought all 3.
 

Cartho

Member
I find it amusing that people are still saying "Nintendo needs to fix this asap" and blaming them. As if Nintendo are deliberately making it hard for people to buy their products.

This isn't some limited edition thing, this is their major product for the next 5+ years. If they could sell a Switch to everyone who wants one right now they would. Trouble is, they are fighting for parts with a couple of small, indie companies - Apple and Samsung. You may have heard of them?

They will get production sorted eventually, but right now they're probably doing everything they can.
 

eMpTy23

Member
The population of Tokyo is around 4x that of the US’s biggest city.

According to Google, Tokyo has a population of 13.69 million in the city's 844 square miles. New York City has 8.54 million in the city's 302 square miles. New York City has a far more dense population than Tokyo and over half the population.
 

Mabase

Member
Damn, just the thought of standing in that long ass line in the current humid-hot sweaty weather in Japan.... poor folks.
 

ranmafan

Member
I find it amusing that people are still saying "Nintendo needs to fix this asap" and blaming them. As if Nintendo are deliberately making it hard for people to buy their products.

This isn't some limited edition thing, this is their major product for the next 5+ years. If they could sell a Switch to everyone who wants one right now they would. Trouble is, they are fighting for parts with a couple of small, indie companies - Apple and Samsung. You may have heard of them?

They will get production sorted eventually, but right now they're probably doing everything they can.

While I agree with you about the situation Nintendo is in and that they will eventually iron out the supply issues and all, the big problem that's really causing lots of the frustration lately in Japan with the switch situation as well as other recent launches, psvr most visibly, has been that a large amount of systems are going not to regular people who want these items but those just to put them on yahoo auctions and such. There's a well known issue of people being paid in line by scalpers just so they can get their hands on numerous ones just to scalp. And many have stated the yakuza are a part of it. There's also been issues with how these lotteries have been taking place with some stories showing some rather strange mistakes being made.

Many have suggested that Japanese stores and companies stop doing these lotteries and find a bettter way of handling it but so far there is no real good answer. And there will indeed be people that get fed up over it. Many did with psvr earlier this year, which is a shame for Sony as psvr is a very in demand product here and even now it's still hard to find and people are angry. The anger over that situation was quite large online then and now, and I expect it will happen to Nintendo too if this lasts well into the year. The one good thing however is that units are getting out there. But when you have to wait in line just for a lottery, it's just very frustrating for many people. Especially when they just released a sequel for it to one of the biggest gaming phenomenons in Japan this past decade. So many people want to play and most can't at all.
 
I was told that the Switch had 'peaked' last month and we wouldn't be seeing lineups like this after last month and the launch of Splatoon.

I told that person they were insane and that Splatoon hype + smaller releases + Mario would only make these lines stay. Look who was right.

Agree. I know some aren't sold on the Switch lineup but it really is loaded, especially for Japan. They get Fire Emblem Warriors already next month. No reason to think demand is going to suddenly fall.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
I'm tempted to dig up that post that insisted the Splatoon 2 launch was peak Switch in Japan, but can't be arsed

Great news though, Switch is a monster

EDIT: beaten like the poster who claimed Switch had peaked
 

ranmafan

Member
I am afraid that people gonna give up getting One

I don't think they will. Its the hot item now, everyone wants it. And even though Nintendo doesn't want people to think it it is in many ways the successor to the 3ds as well so people really want it. But we willl see more frustration and more stories of people being ripped off. Already seen it on the national news this week with a scam involving someone on line ripping people off looking for one. But the sooner Nintendo can get more systems into the hands of gamers the better
 

Zedark

Member
I'm tempted to dig up that post that insisted the Splatoon 2 launch was peak Switch in Japan, but can't be arsed

Great news though, Switch is a monster

EDIT: beaten like the poster who claimed Switch had peaked
No need to, I admit I was wrong ;) Didn't expect the demand after Splatoon 2 to be as mad as, possibly even worse than, the week of Splatoon 2. Really mad, the Switch demand right now.

To be fair, I never argued that demand was going to fall off a cliff. I was always talking about small differences where Splatoon 2 week would edge out ahead of all other weeks.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
MHXX ain't nothin. It's a late port of an upgrade of a spinoff, when the next real main MH has been announced for elsewhere. Splatoon will be the driver until Mario, maybe beyond.
MHX(X) was also the main MH game at the time, just like Monster Hunter World is. But being a port will hinder the sales potential, indeed.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
No need to, I admit I was wrong ;) Didn't expect the demand after Splatoon 2 to be as mad as, possibly even worse than, the week of Splatoon 2. Really mad, the Switch demand right now.

To be fair, I never argued that demand was going to fall off a cliff. I was always talking about small differences where Splatoon 2 week would edge out ahead of all other weeks.

That has to be a gaf first, nobody here admits they were wrong :D

But yeah, Splatoon is just mad, it came from nowhere and blew up. Well deserved though, it's a really fun game
 

Orcastar

Member
Maybe in Japan and NA. Here in Europe (at least Sweden) you can walk into any electronics retailer and just grab one or ten. No supply constraints at all here it seems.

Same thing here in Finland. Just checked some local retailers' websites and they all have hundreds of Switches in stock.
 
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