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[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

So you think it's just as simple as like sending an email like "Amiibos are actually doing well!, let's actually produce 5million instead of 500k!" and then the next week those Amiibos be in Stock?

I get what you guys are saying but it kind of really makes sense for a company like Nintendo who just failed miserably with the Wii U to be extremely conservative in their spending and projections. So Idk. Incompetence seems like a shortsighted conclusion to reach

Wii U numbers were never a surprise to NOA. They didn't overestimate sales but I bet they pressured retailers to take more shipment, but they weren't on shelves in any ridiculous numbers. It's just that the ones on shelves sat there.

 

[Schnozberry]

You guys need to apply Heinlein's Razor here. Never assume malice when incompetence is an adequate explanation.

It's very possible that there is a single component holding back larger scale manufacturing. Or perhaps they got stuck in a low priority contract with their assemblers. They also may have only secured enough shipping container space for orders they knew they could fill, leading to difficulty ramping up once other supply chain issues were fixed. Nothing that can't be fixed with time and money.

It is much sexier to assume some profound philosophical blind spot, though.

 

[Diprosalic]

they never wanted to sell NES minis in loads.

 

[GAMEPROFF]

Current gaming culture demonizes pre-orders. I have a feeling they do not represent demand accurately any longer.

Is Current Gaming Culture 10 persons on Reddit and 15 on NeoGAF?

Outside these boards, everyone preorders. Even on these boards my numbers may be correct.

 

[Aostia]

this is what happens when nobody buys the Wii U.

 

[KingSnake]

this is what happens when nobody buys the Wii U.

God help us find a Switch then.

 

[PandaPandaPanda]

will watch when I get home later but

I tried buying a $99 3DS and ended up unsuccessful-I could have gone out of my way or paid a premium to buy from a scalper, but I just ended up not buying it at all, oh well.

 

[Kthulhu]

Couldn't agree more. I love Nintendo and this shit needs to stop.

My local GameStop employees tell me how Nintendo underships pretty much everything, including the new Pokemon. And I live in Houston, so there isn't an excuse.

Haven't watched the video yet, but does Mr. Sterling speak about the challenges of forecasting and global supply chains from personal experience working in those fields in some capacity?

Or is this a "Nintendo shouldn't have conservative policies" discussion from a consumer's point of view?

How about you watch it and find out?

 

[kaioshade]

Watched the video.

There is no reason a store should receive 5 fucking units. As sterling said, 5 is a comically low amount.

 

[Somnid]

I'm not sure pre-orders would have made a difference. As we saw with Amiibo the manufacturing run pre-dated the release by like 5 months. Would only be useful for printing more, and if they knew it would be limited then there's no point in allowing all of them to be bought before they hit stores by super-fans.

 

[LordRaptor]

My local GameStop employees tell me how Nintendo underships pretty much everything, including the new Pokemon.

Well they would know.
GameStop doesn't just hire anyone who isn't an expert in global supply chain logistics, obviously.

 

[ScientificPizza]

Is Current Gaming Culture 10 persons on Reddit and 15 on NeoGAF?

Outside these boards, everyone preorders. Even on these boards my numbers may be correct.

:/

Anyway Jim Sterling sucks and the needlessly hyperbolic title of his video is embarrassing

My local GameStop employees tell me how Nintendo underships pretty much everything, including the new Pokemon

That is not true. There are millions of copies of Pokemon out there. It is not difficult to find at all.

 

[Orin GA]

Well, at least more will be coming eventually...unlike this...

let me touch you...

 

[Raylan]

The hilariously short pad-cable of the NES Mini pad is the biggest joke. Seriously, it's a farce.
What would a longer cable cost?? 5 Cents? Seriously, all these issues around the NES Mini = a bad joke

 

[Teletraan1]

I figured this thread would be full of the same Nintendo Stans running the same arguments as when this happened. Whether you believe in conspiracy theories or Nintendo just sucks at distribution the bottom line is that time and time again they absolutely fucking fail at getting their products in the hands of consumers. They didn't even hit 50% of the store allocations from all accounts. This was not a case of worrying about shit sitting on shelves. Stores ordered them and they never received the amount they wanted. Pathetic showing for an absolute potato of a device.

 

[Sephzilla]

And the main reason I don't give Nintendo any kind of pass with this shit is because their direct competition seems to have absolutely no problem putting out adequate amounts of product to meet demand. So I don't buy that it's some bigger manufacturing/shipping problem.

 

[Serenitynow]

Artificial scarcity is one of the most persistent myths in this industry. It makes no sense.

 

[kaioshade]

Haven't watched the video yet, but does Mr. Sterling speak about the challenges of forecasting and global supply chains from personal experience working in those fields in some capacity?

Or is this a "Nintendo shouldn't have conservative policies" discussion from a consumer's point of view?

It is still a stupid amount of stock.

And yes i HAVE worked with Global supply chain management for a VERY large company (Fortune 500) in the past. So yea, Nintendo is either beyond idiotic, or doing this intentionally.

 

[random25]

My local GameStop employees tell me how Nintendo underships pretty much everything, including the new Pokemon. And I live in Houston, so there isn't an excuse.

While there are legitimate questions about how much they ship their "toy products", I don't think they undership flagship games. Nintendo first shipped 10 million Pokemon S/M worldwide with digital, and that's a lot, so it's probably just the store underestimating the demand there if it's not available for purchase. And that's also the same for their other first party titles that are known to sold millions.

 

[hooijdonk17]

Well they would know.
GameStop doesn't just hire anyone who isn't an expert in global supply chain logistics, obviously.

It obviously takes an ivy league MBA to know if your store is undersupplied with goods you sell.

 

[Kthulhu]

Well they would know.
GameStop doesn't just hire anyone who isn't an expert in global supply chain logistics, obviously.

If Nintendo's supply chains are a problem they have had years to fix it.

They have routinely done this with just about everything they make, so unless they come out and say otherwise, I'm assuming it's their fault.

Stop being a fanboy and realize when you're getting screwed over.

 

[Neoxon]

Couldn't agree more. I love Nintendo and this shit needs to stop.

My local GameStop employees tell me how Nintendo underships pretty much everything, including the new Pokemon. And I live in Houston, so there isn't an excuse.



How about you watch it and find out?

It's nice to see a fellow HoustonGAFer.

Hopefully Nintendo doesn't pull this shit with the Switch.

 

[Kintaro]

My store got 12 Classics and 2 controllers at launch. My restock? Two Classics in the wednesday before Thanksgiving.

As a retail store manager, Nintendo is nothing but a pain in the ass.

They are going to undership the Switch like a mother fucker. Just wait and see if they do preorders and how many.

 

[Gai Murakumo]

Though I understand and see both sides of this argument, Nintendo has been notorious about under shipping or under producing products. The Wii was to me their only excuse because in all reality they did not know. But things such as the amiibo and some select Nintendo games being impossible to get months at a time should not be excusable now.

 

[kaioshade]

Well, at least more will be coming eventually...unlike this...

That is different. Those were always intended to be a pure limited edition item.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

I figured this thread would be full of the same Nintendo Stans running the same arguments as when this happened. Whether you believe in conspiracy theories or Nintendo just sucks at distribution the bottom line is that time and time again they absolutely fucking fail at getting their products in the hands of consumers. They didn't even hit 50% of the store allocations from all accounts. This was not a case of worrying about shit sitting on shelves. Stores ordered them and they never received the amount they wanted. Pathetic showing for an absolute potato of a device.

And the Wii U that didn't sell out for over a year and they stopped production? That's a huge elephant to just walk around.

 

[asagami_]

That is different. Those were always intended to be a pure limited edition item.

Hmm, just like the New 3DS at this Black Friday, right?

 

[Rowleyfan3620]

Dammit Jim. dammit dammit dammit.

I'm a Nintendo guy, and I hate how right you are about all of this.

I just took a couple steps back from the Switch.

 

[LordRaptor]

It obviously takes an ivy league MBA to know if your store is undersupplied with goods you sell.

It doesn't take an economist to look at Pokemon breaking all kinds of sales records all over the planet and come to the conclusion that maybe pokemon wasnt "deliberately undershipped"

 

[hooijdonk17]

It doesn't take an economist to look at Pokemon breaking all kinds of sales records all over the planet and not come to the conclusion that maybe pokemon wasnt "deliberately undershipped"

Nobodys talking about software here.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

And the main reason I don't give Nintendo any kind of pass with this shit is because their direct competition seems to have absolutely no problem putting out adequate amounts of product to meet demand. So I don't buy that it's some bigger manufacturing/shipping problem.

But don't these complaints come about most often when they're having unprecedented demand? No console sold like Wii, no portable sold like DS, and has any plug-and-play sold like NES Classic?

EDIT: The only quick figure I can find on Atari Flashback for instance, says

In an interview with The Escapist, Curt Vendel remarked, "Flashback 2 did exceptionally well. 860,000 sold in U.S./domestic."

 

[Kusagari]

Stuff like this has me feeling Nintendo has no idea what they're actually doing and they just luck into the success they have.

The fact that their answer to the success of Smash amiibo's was to make a billion Animal Crossing ones just screams ignorance.

 

[PSFan]

I'm not sure pre-orders would have made a difference. As we saw with Amiibo the manufacturing run pre-dated the release by like 5 months. Would only be useful for printing more, and if they knew it would be limited then there's no point in allowing all of them to be bought before they hit stores by super-fans.

Let's be honest here. Amiibos were easily available for a couple of weeks after Wave 1 launch. They didn't start selling like crazy until Iwata mentioned some of them would be in limited quantities, then everyone went nuts.

 

[Sephzilla]

I totally believe this is going to happen with the Switch as well. Since the system is launching in March, I expect the supply of them to be scarcely limited for months and then magically Nintendo will be able to stuff store shelves come November and December. AKA - exactly what they did with the Wii.

But don't these complaints come about most often when they're having unprecedented demand? No console sold like Wii, no portable sold like DS, and has any plug-and-play sold like NES Classic?

The PS2 sold at Wii-like numbers and the PS2 shortage on shelves didn't last remotely as long as it did with the Wii

 

[Kthulhu]

It's nice to see a fellow HoustonGAFer.

Hopefully Nintendo doesn't pull this shit with the Switch.

You'd be surprised how many of us there are.

While there are legitimate questions about how much they ship their "toy products", I don't think they undership flagship games. Nintendo first shipped 10 million Pokemon S/M worldwide with digital, and that's a lot, so it's probably just the store underestimating the demand there if it's not available for purchase. And that's also the same for their other first party titles that are known to sold millions.

The store even said they undershipped Pokemon S&M. They got about 200 copies and told me they were flooded with preorders. They said they sold out of the NES Classic 10 minutes after opening.

 

[Genio88]

Come on, NES mini is not even a real console, they said upfront there wasn't going to be preorders too, i think people got too crazy for this toy, what's the hurry to have a toy that runs 20 years old games which you can find almost everywhere else? You couldn't get it day one? just wait a few weeks and you'll have tons of them waiting for you in stores...Of course if that happened with Switch that'd be bad, but i'm sure it won't, who really want to get it will be able to preorder it and be sure to have it day one

 

[ScientificPizza]

My store got 12 Classics and 2 controllers at launch. My restock? Two Classics in the wednesday before Thanksgiving.

As a retail store manager, Nintendo is nothing but a pain in the ass.

They are going to undership the Switch like a mother fucker. Just wait and see if they do preorders and how many.

I mean, if you expected more than that maybe you should rethink your position as a manager. Your store doesn't exist in a vacuum and Nintendo was delivering these worldwide.

It makes perfect sense that a niche product like this wouldn't have tens of millions of units initially.

 

[Schnozberry]

And the main reason I don't give Nintendo any kind of pass with this shit is because their direct competition seems to have absolutely no problem putting out adequate amounts of product to meet demand. So I don't buy that it's some bigger manufacturing/shipping problem.

Their competitors are some of the largest companies in the world, who have massive leverage and gigantic contracts in place with vendors that are happy to accommodate them. Nintendo is peanuts by comparison. They don't have the same leverage in the manufacturing space at all.

 

[LordRaptor]

Nobodys talking about software here.

My local GameStop employees tell me how Nintendo underships pretty much everything, including the new Pokemon

.

I question the expertise of the people making those claims.

 

[Rats Off To Ya]

Not going to watch but people need to let go of the manufactured scarcity myth.

No one is doing this on purpose in 2016, there are a number of other complex factors that affect supply and demand. Failure to meet demand costs money and the 'free marketing' it gets is not worth loss of sales.

Counterpoint: Nintendo has no idea what the fuck they're doing.

 

[-shadow-]

Well, at least more will be coming eventually...unlike this...

let me touch you...

This was actually labelled as a LE to begin with, so not really surprising.

 

[Wilsongt]

SWITCH is gonna be sold out for months, calling it now, lol.

Well, duh. That's a given.

I'll watch this when I get home, but Nintendo scarcity is always a pain when there is a product I'd like to get, but really don't want to pre-order.

 

[PSFan]

I totally believe this is going to happen with the Switch as well. Since the system is launching in March, I expect the supply of them to be scarcely limited for months and then magically Nintendo will be able to stuff store shelves come November and December. AKA - exactly what they did with the Wii.

The Wii launched in 2006 holiday shopping season, not in March like the Switch will.

 

[hooijdonk17]

.

I question the expertise of the people making those claims.

I wouldnt question people who run a store on whether they are adequately supplied. Gamestop has been competently selling games for as long as Nintendo has been incompetently understocking hardware.

 

[Sephzilla]

The Wii launched in 2006 holiday shopping season, not in March like the Switch will.

Sorry, allow me to correct myself, the Wii shortage lasted basically a full year and then magically the shelves were full the coming year. I actually excused the shortage for the first year.

Their competitors are some of the largest companies in the world, who have massive leverage and gigantic contracts in place with vendors that are happy to accommodate them. Nintendo is peanuts by comparison. They don't have the same leverage in the manufacturing space at all.

Nintendo isn't exactly small, and they (long term) actually bring in more profit than their competition does overall. I don't buy the idea that Nintendo doesn't have the same leverage especially since their name brand has such high value.

 

[Orin GA]

Frankly I don't understand what the demand for this thing was. Short cable and you can't download or add anymore games.

If nintendo relased a hardware replica of the NES that could download NES games I'd be all over that. The claasic seems sort of meh.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

The PS2 sold at Wii-like numbers and the PS2 shortage on shelves didn't last remotely as long as it did with the Wii

There were like twice as many Wiis available as anything before for quite some time.

 

[Kthulhu]

Come on, NES mini is not even a real console, they said upfront there wasn't going to be preorders too, i think people got too crazy for this toy, what's the hurry to have a toy that runs 20 years old games which you can find almost everywhere else? You couldn't get it day one? just wait a few weeks and you'll have tons of them waiting for you in stores...Of course if that happened with Switch that'd be bad, but i'm sure it won't, who really want to get it will be able to preorder it and be sure to have it day one

I still haven't been able to find any. I'd love to buy one if I could.

.

I question the expertise of the people making those claims.

I know these guys pretty well, I don't think they're lying.

 

[Jim_Cacher]

Haven't watched the video. I have never heard of a thing called "artificial demand" throughout my college study. Nintendo could be conservative on production, but I don't think that this is due to failing to forecast the demand. They have been in business for a long time, long enough to forecast the demand by looking at the historical data, especially when they have historical problem with supplying amiibo.

So why did they under-produce the NES Mini and Black Friday 3DS? Maybe because of production volume of plants, limitation in parts supply, or they simply didn't have much time to produce a large amount of products. The problems could be caused by many factors, but I am pretty sure "artificial demand" isn't one of them.

And I do believe Nintendo need to fix this before selling Switch, albeit I doubt if they can greatly raise the production volume within 3 months.

 

[Galang]

There are multiple times I was burned by Nintendo on limited editions, but the amiibo situation definitely left the worst impression. I literally only wanted 2 of them and the trouble I went to get those was crazy at the time. No respect for how Nintendo handles their stock at all.