Jimquistion: Nintendo's SNES Classic Preorder Nonsense
- Thread starter mjc
- Start date
dragonyeuw
Member
Nintendo has been poor with how they've communicated when pre-orders would go live, whether it be date or time. I also quite clearly stated that preorders going online at 2am or whenever it was falls on amazon. My question is, why does this not happen with other companies and I'm awaiting the answer still. What other 'hot ticket' times go on preorder unannounced at 1am in the morning?
Once Nintendo sells these systems to retailers, it's out of their hands. If Nintendo sat the pre-order date for the 22nd, retailers are going to list them as soon as possible to move them. No sane retailer is going to sit on stock, especially something that's in demand as this system is.
Here's the thing, at no point in your life, or mine, have we ever been a customer of Nintendo. Nintendo's customers are retail stores. That's who they sell their product too.
Should Nintendo do a better job of communicating, yes, however, even if Nintendo had said pre-orders go live on the 22nd, we'd still have this thread and people complaining.
Wii and Amiibos
dragonyeuw
Member
Actually when I order a game direct off the eshop, I am immediately their customer. There's no middleman. Does that have anything to do with this issue? No, but your comment that none of us have 'ever' been their customer is false.
While true, the digital marketplace has no bearing on the conversation we're having right now, or this thread, as we're discussing a physical object.
All Nintendo had to do was open up pre-orders on their website. Make them available for a week or so before production started, so they knew exactly how much to manufacture + a few extra to send to retailers, and have it require a 50% (or 100%) non-refundable deposit to secure the pre-order. Everyone who wanted one would have been able to purchase one, and Nintendo wouldn't have additional stock sitting in their warehouse (although, let's be honest, I find it difficult to believe that any of these SNES Classic Mini would ever just "sit on shelves" not being sold, regardless of how much Nintendo produced).
I have a pre-order for the SNES Classic Mini, but even then I don't feel safe. When I made the order, the website was extremely buggy/non-responsive, and while I do have a confirmation email/credit card charge, I still feel uneasy. Regardless of whether Nintendo actually ships more or not before the end of the year, I'm confident those will be sold just as quickly as the initial ones did, if not faster. Nintendo can't use the "we underestimated demand" excuse this time, not like they did with the NES Classic Mini. They knew just as many, if not more people, were interested in the SNES Classic Mini, and even if they increased production by 50%, it still wouldn't be enough.
Nintendo, people want to give you their money. Let them.
I have a pre-order for the SNES Classic Mini, but even then I don't feel safe. When I made the order, the website was extremely buggy/non-responsive, and while I do have a confirmation email/credit card charge, I still feel uneasy. Regardless of whether Nintendo actually ships more or not before the end of the year, I'm confident those will be sold just as quickly as the initial ones did, if not faster. Nintendo can't use the "we underestimated demand" excuse this time, not like they did with the NES Classic Mini. They knew just as many, if not more people, were interested in the SNES Classic Mini, and even if they increased production by 50%, it still wouldn't be enough.
Nintendo, people want to give you their money. Let them.
LegendofLex
Member
Literally every non-software product they've released since the '90s.
They either sell out and are hard to find, or they lose money and/or market share and get price cut really quickly.
Nintendo's main source of income is video games, unlike Sony, who also has consumer electronics, movies, music, and insurance, and can better weather a loss in video game sales than Nintendo.
Ivan A Nguyen
Member
He asks why these pre-orders went up so late and I think I can probably touch on that reason.
If you have a product that might crash your web store, it's probably best to put it for sale during a time where you won't lose money on all your other product sales. Gamestop put theirs up in the middle of the day and that pretty much crashed their site. Seems like a bad idea, right? Well not so much if you take in to account that they were redirecting you to a different store where the crappy bundles were selling the product for 2-3x the price.
If you have a product that might crash your web store, it's probably best to put it for sale during a time where you won't lose money on all your other product sales. Gamestop put theirs up in the middle of the day and that pretty much crashed their site. Seems like a bad idea, right? Well not so much if you take in to account that they were redirecting you to a different store where the crappy bundles were selling the product for 2-3x the price.
UberTag
Member
The Wii U
Amiibo production
Locking game content to artificially scarce Amiibos instead of offering it for purchase digitally
Tying Switch online functionality to a cell phone app
Intentionally dysfunctional virtual console support across their library of products
Friend code reliance
Inadequate third-party support curating
Not providing engaged developers with kits so they can port their titles
Not localizing Xenoblade for an eternity and restricting it to Europe initially despite clear demand for it elsewhere
The New 3DS being a thing despite negligible noteworthy software support ever utilizing its additional horsepower
That's just off the top of my head.
No company harbors as much malice for its core audience and delights in having them jump through an endless array of hoops just to access their products and content than Nintendo. Period.
And I say that as someone who primarily games on Switch right now and actually managed to land a Super NES Classic Mini pre-order. I've actually been pretty fortunate and engaged in their ecosystem this year and yet that hasn't changed my opinion one iota.
dragonyeuw
Member
Which I said, correct?
'Does that have anything to do with this issue? No...'
You made a comment that warranted being addressed, whether it deals with the matter at hand or not. I can also go on Nintendo's website and through their reward programs get physical products. Am I their customer in that instance? Yes, I am. If you want to play semantics with 'well ya know, technically you and I have NEVER been their customers'....well.......
That does nothing to address the issue with bots. As soon as scalpers would find out that Nintendo is opening pre-orders, the bots would be set in motion and all hell would break loose.
Pilgrimzero
Member
Saw an old news clip about Nintendo and when Super Mario bros 2 was coming out and how rare it was to find. The news host even said the shortage seemed intentional.
And this was in the 80s.
This is standard Nintendo practice.
And this was in the 80s.
This is standard Nintendo practice.
LegendofLex
Member
I'm gonna source wikipedia, but it'll do for a quick hot take:
Nintendo
Revenue: ¥504.459 billion (2016)
Profit: ¥16.505 billion (2016)
Total assets: ¥1.297 trillion (2016)
Number of employees 5,166 (2017)
Sony Corp
Revenue: ¥7.6 trillion (2017)
Profit: ¥73.3 billion (2017)
Total assets: ¥17.66 trillion (2017)
Number of employees: 125,300 (2016) (SIE employees: ~8,000)
You've got to ask Nintendo of America and retailers why they handled pre-orders they way they did. Again, it wasn't that difficult to secure one of those things in Europe.
To your question: 🤷*♂️
How many comparable novelty items like this with such a huge demand have ever been on sale before? I don't know. This question is pointless anyway. This thing sold out at 2AM pretty much instantly. It would've sold out immediately at a different time.
It wouldn't really matter, since the SNES Classic Mini would be made-to-order this way. People who wanted to buy would be able to, and if bots wanted to purchase additional copies for themselves to sell on the aftermarket, it wouldn't affect anyone during that specific ordering time-frame.
Or, Nintendo could even go another route, and make it so you needed to log into your My Nintendo account to make the pre-order, as well as limit it to one per. I doubt many bots would create multiple My Nintendo accounts with differing address just to order something that everyone else has the capability to buy.
DeathbyCheerios
Member
I walk into any store that sells games and look on the shelves its bare. Very limited stock of 3DS games. Switches are still hard to find. When the WiiU was still the main Nintendo console stores would carry maybe 5-10 games and only 1 or 2 of them were any good.
For people aiming to absolve Nintendo from responsibility of this, and many other, disasters, consider the fact that all they would need to do is offer the NES/SNES classic as more than a one production run product. These consoles originally sold decades ago. Their relevance has nothing to do with some kind of risk on Nintendo's part of producing a product that may not sell and everything to do with creating hype, buzz and scarcity around these limited run classic console releases. All they need to do is announce that they will be selling the SNES classic for the foreseeable future and we wouldn't have to put up with this bullshit from scalpers.
This is the latest offense in a long history of incompetency from Nintendo that have resulted in me not spending a dime on their products since the Gamecube era. My lack of Nintendo purchases aren't all due to issues like poor digital software management, lack of voice chat or other online community functions made for 6 year olds, but also because their products are impossible to buy. I would have loved to spend money on a NES Classic and was hellbent on purchasing a SNES Classic because SNES was such a big part of my childhood. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to secure a US pre-order for the SNES Classic and now face either attempting to camp out at Target the day before retail release or spending $200-$300 over MSRP to fill a dirty scalper's pockets.
Such a wonderful way for Nintendo to support scalpers and concurrently shit on their fans. Looks like I'll continue to not spend a dime on their products. I know they won't miss my money but I hope these poor business practices catch up to them someday. Nothing would make me happier than to see Nintendo relegated to be a third party software producer.
This is the latest offense in a long history of incompetency from Nintendo that have resulted in me not spending a dime on their products since the Gamecube era. My lack of Nintendo purchases aren't all due to issues like poor digital software management, lack of voice chat or other online community functions made for 6 year olds, but also because their products are impossible to buy. I would have loved to spend money on a NES Classic and was hellbent on purchasing a SNES Classic because SNES was such a big part of my childhood. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to secure a US pre-order for the SNES Classic and now face either attempting to camp out at Target the day before retail release or spending $200-$300 over MSRP to fill a dirty scalper's pockets.
Such a wonderful way for Nintendo to support scalpers and concurrently shit on their fans. Looks like I'll continue to not spend a dime on their products. I know they won't miss my money but I hope these poor business practices catch up to them someday. Nothing would make me happier than to see Nintendo relegated to be a third party software producer.
dragonyeuw
Member
Are you in Europe? I'm guessing you are based on that comment, but how preorders were handled on the NA side were an entirely different matter. Or are you suggesting that NA customers had access to those europe preorders and could have secured one that way? Sure, but why were the two processes handled differently? Not a question for you to answer, obviously.
Actually it's not pointless but let's zero in a bit so that that question isn't so far-reaching. What 'video game consoles' in recent years have had preorders dropped in the middle of the night announced outside of this one? Also, from what has been reported, bestbuy's preorders were up for 20 mins. If people were forewarned, maybe that's still the case, maybe not. But you're completely cutting off people from even having the CHANCE to get an order in at 2am. I can live with missing out during the day, because I tried with walmart and target, no dice. But 2am in the morning? 3am? Ridiculous.
Godzilla's Left Toe
Member
Hyperbole 101.
Why are some of you so eager to give up? All this "I'll never get one now" is nonsense. There are going to be countless ways to get this in the next few months.
Follow wario64/discord and be ready if they go live again
Camp at TRU on 9/29
Have friends look out for you online and in stores
Save some extra money and buy from scalper/eBay
I don't want to hear any excuse. If you want something go get it. All of you knew this was gonna be hard.
Follow wario64/discord and be ready if they go live again
Camp at TRU on 9/29
Have friends look out for you online and in stores
Save some extra money and buy from scalper/eBay
I don't want to hear any excuse. If you want something go get it. All of you knew this was gonna be hard.
Yes.
No.
See? I don't consider the SNES mini to be a video game console. It's a novelty item. I don't think comparisons with other video game consoles make much sense here.
And I get that frustration. I'm not a retailer, I don't know if their servers could handle it. But I can imagine them not being able to withstand the pressure if pre-orders launched during day time. Doesn't make any of this any better for you of course, it's just an academic thought.
DeathbyCheerios
Member
I mean thats all fine and dandy but it's still an issue. People will do what you said but that doesn't mean people should have to bend over backwards to buy a product.
I won't deny that most stores that don't focus on games often have a pitiful stock of Nintendo games (which isn't Nintendo's fault), but to imply they're as hard to find as SNES Classics is laughable hyperbole.
Teletraan1
Banned
I live in a small out of the way town so hopefully I will be able to go into my local Walmart and buy one after they come out. That same walmart has had full stock of Switches for the last 3 weeks.
DeathbyCheerios
Member
I'm not saying that it's as hard to find but it still isn't easy. I go to EBGames here in Canada and their Nintendo section is 1/3 of the size of the Xbox One section and thats for ALL Nintendo consoles. They have almost nothing. Hell 1/4 is often empty boxes advertising the consoles they don't have in stock.
Azure Dream
Member
How are we supposed to know that when Nintendo explicitly said they'd learned from the NES Classic mess?
Nintendo is not interested in selling just SNES/NES minis. They want to sell an ecosystem on the Switch that you have chosen to not be part of. And they are not the only ones, TLOU would sell great on Steam, but Sony is not interested in a one time $60, they want you to buy a PS4/Pro.
The NES didn't had preorders. This at least did
.DeathbyCheerios
Member
Bra you should of just known. /s
Kadin
Member
Anyone else remember the "chip shortage" which cause Zelda II to be delayed??
DeathbyCheerios
Member
How does not having enough SNES/NES minis make someone want to buy a Switch though? Especially when the virtual console doesn't exist for it yet?
How can you believe that and be a gaffer? You KNOW Nintendo is gonna screw this up. It's like clockwork every time.
That's not the fault of Nintendo. Nintendo could produce ten million copies of Splatoon 2 on Day 1 but 10 million won't appear on store shelves. The PS4 and X1 get a lot of shelf space because they generally have the highest amount of games and, more importantly, trade-ins, so they get more orders for each store.
It's definitely not a big enough issue to stop buying any Nintendo thing, that's for sure.
DeathbyCheerios
Member
My big overwhelming point is I do not want to support a company who keeps doing stupid shit like this all the time and never learning. from the Switches laughable attempt at online play to the supporting the scalping market by artificially putting out low quantities of products to hell, locking fucking game content (not even just cosmetics) behind hard to find Amiibos its fucking ridiculous.
They explicitly said that the NES mini was a limited item produced to rise brand awareness. The post I'm responding too explicitly said that he is not interested in Nintendo products other than the SNES mini. And you can buy a wii u very easily, and get your SNES roms that way.
Kadin
Member
Normally I'd agree with you but this is Nintendo and they've formed a pattern over the years. This isn't anything new and the recent crazy preorder release times is just one example. Like I've said earlier, I'd be glad to see them flood the market knowing the demand is clearly there, but I just don't see that happening.
That's fine, but I can still find it ridiculous.
DeathbyCheerios
Member
Could also just easily download a torrent with 90% of the SNES collectionThey explicitly said that the NES mini was a limited item produced to rise brand awareness. The post I'm responding too explicitly said that he is not interested in Nintendo products other than the SNES mini. And you can buy a wii u very easily, and get your SNES roms that way.
I'm disappointed that this isn't a Jimquisition. There's a thrust to the argument I'd rather have presented by a character known for dramatic exaggeration. You can push consumerism to a point where it gets really gross, where the argument becomes predatory: "Since I can pay for it, you better sell it to me!" It construes that point at infinity where two (thought to be fruitfully) antagonizing mindsets meet, only to chum up and become one and the same: some soulless, malicious, impersonal, self-consuming intent to accumulate for accumulation's sake.
LordRaptor
Member
Could also just easily download a torrent with 90% of the SNES collection
fuck, why buy anything ever?
dragonyeuw
Member
Well, I won't get into whether you consider this a 'real' console or a novelty....
Perhaps their servers can't handle it, we don't know, but then you can also say that the 'fervor' over this item stems from the uncertainty of it. How many preorders are being allowed? How many units are being made in general? For exactly how long will it be produced? All of these things circle back to Nintendo eventually. So just maybe, they've created a monster that the retailers really can't handle in a way that won't piss off swarms of customers? Anyways...even in the last 3 days since the preorder craze has there been any word from Nintendo on when the next wave of preorders is coming? Maybe we're all over-reacting and Nintendo will eventually catch up to demand, but they really haven't earned the benefit of doubt. To many people the initial preorders represented their best chance to get a desired item, based off the feedback I'm getting across the internet, and everything from here on out is going to be a pure crap shoot and dumb luck if you stumble into one. It's really just a shitty experience overall.
Maybe Nintendo alone should be handling the preorder process, which I and others have said numerous times in the past few days. There HAS to be a better way that this.
spookyfish
Gold Member
Agreed. Nintendo is my primary system, but I think NoA's businesss practices these past few years are beyond shitty. I keep hoping for a change, but Reggie keeps staying.
Audioboxer
Member
Thanks Jim.
NeoGAF poster in YT comments.
NeoGAF poster in YT comments.