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[LordRaptor]

Yeah that seems to be the case with people like Lord Raptor.

I've watched the video.

He literally goes from "On paper there is no reason why they would do this" to "I believe they do this" / "I refuse to believe they're not doing this" which is like a giant hole where a reasonable argument should exist.

Also, maybe address the points not the poster?

e:

Artificial scarcity IS real, deal with it:http://www.artificialscarcity.com/

That's... uhhhhh... quite the rebuttal.

 

[darkrage6]

Nah. I argued on behalf of artificial scarcity in video games when the ps2 hit the market and got fucking schooled by people wiser and more experienced than myself. Pretty sure it hasn't changed since then. Nintendo would sell to every customer who wants one if they had the option.

Then Nintendo is simply incompetent, I don't recall scarcity with the PS2 being anywhere near as bad as it was with the Wii.

 

[Timeaisis]

Not reading the rest of your post.

You're wrong.

The wrongest person ever.

So what do you think it is? Manufactured scarcity + ultra ultra conservatism on production?

I get why Nintendo does it, but it stings every time.

 

[KingSnake]

Also, maybe address the points not the poster?

Holy mother of irony!

 

[Graphics Horse]

Nah. I argued on behalf of artificial scarcity in video games when the ps2 hit the market and got fucking schooled by people wiser and more experienced than myself. Pretty sure it hasn't changed since then. Nintendo would sell to every customer who wants one if they had the option.

I'm almost surprised I've never seen it leveled at PSVR, almost. Those are all hand crafted by Japanese Monks though.

 

[darkrage6]

I've watched the video.

He literally goes from "On paper there is no reason why they would do this" to "I believe they do this" / "I refuse to believe they're not doing this" which is like a giant hole where a reasonable argument should exist.

Also, maybe address the points not the poster?

All i've seen you do on here is make troll post after troll post, unless you've worked in retail you really have no clue. I don't know how you justify sending only FIVE of the fucking things to one store, that's just insanity, I don't know how any sane person can possibly defend that.

 

[TheOfficeMut]

I've watched the video.

He literally goes from "On paper there is no reason why they would do this" to "I believe they do this" / "I refuse to believe they're not doing this" which is like a giant hole where a reasonable argument should exist.

Also, maybe address the points not the poster?

I believe he said it seems like there is no reason for them to do this, but then explains why they would. No?

 

[btrboyev]

Nintendo doesn't like money apparently. For something that is probably super cheap to produce, they could have sold a couple million of these things this holiday. I bet they didn't even ship 500,000 of them.

 

[LordRaptor]

Holy mother of irony!

Where am I using ad hominems not statements people have made?

e:

I believe he said it seems like there is no reason for them to do this, but then explains why they would. No?

No, he uses an example of a local stores shipment numbers as 'proof', but that is somehwat meaningless without knowing what numbers are involved in total.
Target has ~2000 locations, so 5 units per store is 10,000 units shipped to one retailer in one country.
Is that a lot? Is that deliberately few? How do other System on a chip retro console sell?

Seems like a huge hole where data should be to jump to that conclusion, especially after asserting that factually it makes no sense.

 

[NormalFish]

Please, give an example and I will break down the step-by-step logic of my stance if you do not follow it.

I've already tried my best to articulate where you're making massive logical leaps and you just reiterate them as if they mean something more. It's definitely a you problem, not a logic problem at this point.

 

[darkrage6]

Agreed.

There is no valid excuse for the the NES Mini being in short supply especially considering it's price and the 30 year old hardware it's based on.

Yeah, it's pathetic to see people on here desperately arguing that they are totally not a Nintendo fanboy, yet they're still blindly insulting anyone who dares to suggest that just maybe Nintendo is kind of incompetent.

 

[fabricated backlash]

What if the answer is a little simpler than this conspiracy theory bullshit? What if it's more like Nintendo realized over the summer that they don't have their usual big November release, they decided to excrete out a little Plug & Play TV Games console in a cute box, make and distribute as many as they could in just a few months, and hope for the best?

As to the Amiibo argument... they flooded the stores with Marios and Links and shit because those games sell. Sure, Wii Fit sold gajillions of copies, but not to the crowd that likes to own plastic figurines of their childhood heroes. So they probably initially made the initial minimum factory run of characters they didn't have high expectations of, like the Wii Fit Trainer, and the speculators drove demand crazy.

Nah too reasonable.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Also, maybe address the points not the poster?

Holy hell.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Can I get a synopsis of the video as I refuse to give another YouTube blowhard from NeoGAF any clicks or views?

Why are you here if you're not willing to put in the bare minimum required to discuss the topic at hand?

 

[aBarreras]

Yeah, it's pathetic to see people on here desperately arguing that they are totally not a Nintendo fanboy, yet they're still blindly insulting anyone who dares to suggest that just maybe Nintendo is kind of incompetent.

i mean, there is a difference with being incompetent and creating artificial scarcity.

 

[fabricated backlash]

Nintendo doesn't like money apparently. For something that is probably super cheap to produce, they could have sold a couple million of these things this holiday. I bet they didn't even ship 500,000 of them.

Don't you see. Thats the genius of their plan. By not delivering enough units to market, thus losing sales they somehow manage to profit...


Honestly, anyone who even for a second stops to think about this planned scarcity conspiracy would see how stupid that is from a business perspective. Especially for a one off item like the NES mini.

 

[Skittzo0413]

All i've seen you do on here is make troll post after troll post, unless you've worked in retail you really have no clue. I don't know how you justify sending only FIVE of the fucking things to one store, that's just insanity, I don't know how any sane person can possibly defend that.

You seem to be ignoring most of the points being made against artificial scarcity. Has it crossed your mind that maybe they sent 5 units to one store because that's all the stock they could allot to that store? Because maybe they are extremely conservative in production of a product, since they are very risk-averse?

No one here is trolling- we are trying to understand and explain how production and shipping works, and how intentional artificial scarcity does not benefit Nintendo when they have no means to quickly resupply a product. Which they have shown in this case to not have. Otherwise stores would have been flooded with NES Classics on black Friday.

What happened here is a combination of extremely conservative production and woefully underestimating demand. I won't defend Nintendo for doing that because it sucks for consumers, especially when scalpers come into the situation. But debunking this artificial scarcity myth is in no way being a "Nintendo fanboy" or "blindly defending" the company.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Nintendo doesn't like money apparently. For something that is probably super cheap to produce, they could have sold a couple million of these things this holiday. I bet they didn't even ship 500,000 of them.

They sold a quarter million in its first several days of availability in Japan, the only place we have numbers for. By the end of the year they will have almost certainly sold several million.

 

[Petrae]

Can I get a synopsis of the video as I refuse to give another YouTube blowhard from NeoGAF any clicks or views?

You fucking saw "Jimquisition" in the thread title. Aside from obvious shitposting, what did you expect to accomplish here? Don't like the source of the thread? Stay out. It's not hard to do.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

He's not really wrong on that. Nintendo intentionally underships to help create demand.

What they were doing when amiibos first launched was ridiculous.

 

[Kthulhu]

Holy hell.

Lol.

i mean, there is a difference with being incompetent and creating artificial scarcity.

I personally think it's intentional. 30+ years of executives can't all be stupid enough not to do a little research or improve manufacturing or shipping.

If it's really not Nintendo's fault then they should say something. Not just say "we're going to make more" we know they're going to make more. Make more in the first fucking place. This happens every single time they release an anticipated product it's hard to not believe it's intentional, cus the pattern is there, and I bet it'll happen again with the Switch.

 

[aBarreras]

Lol.



I personally think it's intentional. 30+ years of executives can't all be stupid enough not to do a little research or improve manufacturing or shipping.

If it's really not Nintendo's fault then they should say something. Not just say "we're going to make more" we know they're going to make more. Make more in the first fucking place. This happens every single time they release an anticipated product it's hard to not believe it's intentional, cus the pattern is there, and I bet it'll happen again with the Switch.

after they overstocked both 3ds and wii u, can you really blame them for being conservative?

 

[Lanrutcon]

Thank god for Jim.

But now I know where he lives. Shocked!

 

[Pyrrhus]

No, the problem here is likely that they run too tight a ship.

As many people have indicated in this thread, they try to save as much money as possible on manufacturing, shipping, and storage and what this does is both cause their production numbers to go down and cause resupply to take a lot longer than if they actually had a more cohesive supply chain ready.

This ensures that releasing a new product is as risk-averse as possible, which they probably doubled down on after the Wii U failed to move even half of the estimated 10 million they produced in the first year.

And it's a very annoying habit to consumers, and people are right to call them out on it. But artificial scarcity it is not, and it's probably debatable whether or not you can call it incompetence, as this shows Nintendo is very, very good with managing their money. Though it could very well indicate a lot of money left on the table that they're missing out on, but that's a bit harder to quantify.

They're fucking themselves, though. The worth of this thing drops precipitously for most consumers after the holidays. Running a tight ship maybe is the wrong metaphor. They're just bad at what they do in every arena outside of developing games. Everyone always wants to use the Wii as the counter argument here, but 2006 was a full decade ago and it's been like watching Wile E. Coyote fall off a cliff and hit every ledge and branch on the way down since about 2010.

after they overstocked both 3ds and wii u, can you really blame them for being conservative?

...Yes? If they'd done proper research with those they would have known that the 3DS was overpriced, 3D was a fad that was already faltering at the time of the 3DS's reveal, and the Wii U was an underpowered, confusingly named bit of hubris. When they bother to pull their heads out the sand they can't seem to read the wind right.

 

[Meia]

after they overstocked both 3ds and wii u, can you really blame them for being conservative?

There's conservative, and making sure no store has double digital supply for a product that has a chance at being highly in demand based on your marketing of it.


They were either conservative to the point of incompetence, or they didn't put out many of them to drive up demand(which they've done a LOT over the calendar year). Pick one.

 

[random25]

Okay but show me the track record of those companies overestimating or underestimating as much as Nintendo. Nintendo is special in that regard and to pretend otherwise is foolish.

They have a proven history of underestimating shipments, either deliberately or unintentionally.

Nintendo is not really special in that regard. Only in recent memory did they really undership, mostly accessories and miscellaneous stuff. Aside from the Wii and limited edition hardware, they never undership consoles. And on software front, only niche games are the ones that have very low shipments for the most part, and their best-selling games are usually available in your favorite gaming stores. Their issue is mostly availability of Nintendo items in certain regions, which is another story.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

Either there is intentional supply chain constriction going on or Nintendo is the worst major corporation on the planet at determining what demand is for their products. This has been happening for twenty years.

Executives of manufacturing companies found that it's easy bank for them personally to cut their company's production overhead, most notably by keeping a very low inventory. An executive at Nintendo can bring in a guy that does the lean manufacturing thing, then they work together to cut inventory, cut assembly staff, overwork who's left and limit purchasing. That makes them look good and get bigger bonuses. The purchasing and production team then has pick up the pieces, cobbling together product with whatever they can get at the time from one of their contract manufacturers, as evidenced by the 3DS screen situation (both IPS, both TN, or a combination).

Say Nintendo wants to meet an order of 50,000 NES Classics just to meet a portion of last month's unfilled orders. Every CM involved in that product has to get them the components (main boards, shells, etc.) right away since Nintendo has none. Any one of those CMs might not be able to ship to Nintendo in time, or not enough of them. Maybe the CM who makes the main board has their resources tied up on the orders of other companies and are weeks out from starting on Nintendo's order, or maybe they themselves don't have the inventory to make NES Classic main boards and have to wait weeks to restock parts. They go month to month scrambling to get what they need to make their numbers. So Nintendo most likely has multiple different CMs making the same component just in case this happens, so quality will vary. For example, one 3DS display manufacturer might be unable to ship enough to Nintendo this month, so Nintendo has to call a different contract manufacturer and use their shittier ones for that order.

Basically, executives at Nintendo are making more money personally at the expense of their manufacturing capabilities and their customers. They'll intentionally underestimate the sales of a product knowing they can't come close to making enough to meet demand since they gutted their manufacturing capabilities, so they go month to month calling their CMs and try to get them to deliver the what they can asap to meet orders, and in many cases the retailer won't see their order on time.

 

[Sanctuary]

So was the original copies of The Adventure of Link really due to "chip scarcity", or did they just miscalculate? I remember everyone in school talking about how it was impossible to get a copy of the game because they had a chip shortage.

 

[aBarreras]

There's conservative, and making sure no store has double digital supply for a product that has a chance at being highly in demand based on your marketing of it.


They were either conservative to the point of incompetence, or they didn't put out many of them to drive up demand(which they've done a LOT over the calendar year). Pick one.

they were conservative and incompetent, easy.

 

[joecanada]

This thread taught me something. I'm buying a switch to resell.

 

[chaosblade]

I don't think they are deliberately trying to keep products out of people's hands, because that costs them money. But I do think Nintendo is more comfortable underestimating/lowballing demand rather than potentially sitting on a bunch of unsold inventory. It's how they handle their games, so it isn't surprising for that to apply to their hardware or other products.

Put another way, it's intentional but not malicious.

 

[yllekz]

how is nintendo "getting away with this bullshit" when everybody is calling them out?

They get away with it because they continue to do it, as they never listen nor learn.

They did it with Wii, they did it with Amiibo, they did it with the Smash adapter, they did it with the NES Classic.

They won't stop this shit behavior.

 

[Malice215]

You can easily solve these issues by allowing people to preorder.

Nintendo knows exactly what they're doing.

 

[Dsyndrome]

Nah. I argued on behalf of artificial scarcity in video games when the ps2 hit the market and got fucking schooled by people wiser and more experienced than myself. Pretty sure it hasn't changed since then. Nintendo would sell to every customer who wants one if they had the option.

Because Nintendo has never done this before. Ever.

 

[Kthulhu]

after they overstocked both 3ds and wii u, can you really blame them for being conservative?

Yes. The 3DS was $250 at launch and the Wii U had horrible marketing. Nintendo did that to themselves.

Actually doing research could've prevented that.

 

[Calm Mind]

The angry joe thread mentality is now spreading to jim. We're fucked.

THIS

 

[NateDrake]

I'm curious to learn how many they shipped for North America during the month. That will help put things a better perspective in regards to demand.

 

[Calm Mind]

I'm curious to learn how many they shipped for North America during the month. That will help put things a better perspective in regards to demand.

We'll find out soon enough.

 

[Muppet of a Man]

Not reading the rest of your post.

You're wrong.

The wrongest person ever.

Consigned. The shit I witnessed the day it launched was pitiful. In fact, everyone in line was talking about how Nintendo has always been a dick when it came to undershipping hardware at launch of anything it sells.

Your video is spot on.

 

[StereoVsn]

Basically, executives at Nintendo are making more money personally at the expense of their manufacturing capabilities and their customers. They'll intentionally underestimate the sales of a product knowing they can't come close to making enough to meet demand since they gutted their manufacturing capabilities, so they go month to month calling their CMs and try to get them to deliver the what they can asap to meet orders, and in many cases the retailer won't see their order on time.

Now this I can easily believe as I have seen this shit firsthand and it's mind boggling what kind of short sighted shit execs pull off for that yearly bonus.

 

[Kthulhu]

THIS

They are quoting you.

 

[RibMan]

Nike deliberately manufactures low amounts of their new Jordan shoes and other limited editions to drive up demand. The videos of long lines, reports of mobs, high resale value, and people getting mugged over the products, increases brand awareness for the rest of their product line and future releases.

Good article on it here: http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/06/09/sneaker-resell-market/

Edit: I should add that Nike so closely monitors demand that they almost always have sellouts and rarely over/undership by more than 5-10%. They are better at this "game" than Nintendo is.

From the article:

Nike will occasionally choose to reassert its position at the top of the game by causing pandemonium with an extraordinarily limited release. This hype can then be leveraged to drive huge sales for future releases, as was the case with 2013’s What The LeBron X. Nike produced a tiny run of the shoe, which unsurprisingly sold out instantly. When it came to the 2014 release, the What The LeBron XI, Nike dropped the sneaker in far greater quantities, and built off the previous release’s hype to shift a large volume of retail sales as customers thought the drop was highly limited just like the year before.

I bolded and underlined the important part.

When a big company like Nintendo chooses the trickle-down method, they do so in order to double/triple/quadruple/quintuple/sextuple/septuple/etc. the demand for the trickle-downed product and for future products. It's about getting more people interested in the product. If you're able to understand that, you're not going to be surprised when Nintendo do it again next year and the year after that and the year after that etc.

 

[Skittzo0413]

They get away with it because they continue to do it, as they never listen nor learn.

They did it with Wii, they did it with Amiibo, they did it with the Smash adapter, they did it with the NES Classic.

They won't stop this shit behavior.

You're missing the Wii U and 3DS from your list. They vastly oversupplied both of those, and it gave them their first losses in decades. You can blame the Wii U and 3DS failing on whatever you want, but the only thing which lost the money in a long time is the fact that they overproduced those devices.

So that has taught them to be exceedingly conservative with production, which is shitty for consumers and we have every right to call them on it.

 

[KingSnake]

Where am I using ad hominems not statements people have made?

Here:

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

And accusing Jim that he has literally telling people to pirate ROMs rather than buy a NES Mini as a way to argument against his opinion from this Jimquisition:

and just going online and downloading the roms for free....well, I wouldn't mention if you do that here on Gaf.

Thats literally what Jim sterling was telling people to do when the NES mini was announced though. I guess he changed his mind.

 

[Pyrrhus]

So was the original copies of The Adventure of Link really due to "chip scarcity", or did they just miscalculate? I remember everyone in school talking about how it was impossible to get a copy of the game because they had a chip shortage.

I've heard at that very time you could hop the border to Canada and find Zelda 2 in abundance. So that would definitely point to artificial scarcity in the US. But in truth, the entire cartridge manufacturing situation was a way for Nintendo to royally screw both the licensees and consumers.

The entire setup was really rigged and unfair to hear the old salts tell it. You paid up front, they determined when your games would be made (and would prioritize their own titles if they had something hot at the time), and you were left holding the bag on any unsold units that would result from consumers just giving up and moving on in the two or three months the whole process would take. There is absolutely a reason almost everybody moved on to competitors like Sega and later Sony and why there are such bitter feelings toward Nintendo from so many corners. We should all be grateful Nintendo are no longer running this industry.

 

[GRIMREEFZ]

Really enjoy his... thanks God for Jim is all.

 

[family_guy]

You're missing the Wii U and 3DS from your list. They vastly oversupplied both of those, and it gave them their first losses in decades. You can blame the Wii U and 3DS failing on whatever you want, but the only thing which lost the money in a long time is the fact that they overproduced those devices.

So that has taught them to be exceedingly conservative with production, which is shitty for consumers and we have every right to call them on it.

To be fair both the Wii U and 3DS were successors to the very popular Wii and DS, so it's easy to understand why they would make so many units of them. What's puzzling is the lack of desire to discount either of them significantly.

 

[VLQ]

...Yes? If they'd done proper research with those they would have known that the 3DS was overpriced, 3D was a fad that was already faltering at the time of the 3DS's reveal, and the Wii U was an underpowered, confusingly named bit of hubris. When they bother to pull their heads out the sand they can't seem to read the wind right.

and nes mini is a 30 years old console with 30 old games, and amiibo is just a overpriced dlc

 

[LordRaptor]

Here

Neither of those are about a person, they are both literally addressing the thing that person has said. Look, I'm actually quoting the thing that was said and directly referring to it.

Not going "All you've done is troll post! Here's a picture of a kettle!"

e:

When a big company like Nintendo chooses the trickle-down method, they do so in order to double/triple/quadruple/quintuple/sextuple/septuple/etc. the demand for the trickle-downed product

What's the trickle down product for a NES mini?

 

[Pandy]

He's not wrong though, any way you look at it, a Target store only getting THREE of the fucking things is shady as shit.

The Buyer(s) at Target will have asked for a minimal amount of stock months in advance, then as hype built at the last minute will have desperately tried to up their shipment, to little or no avail depending where they sit in the supply chain. There wasn't a lot of hype for NES mini when it was announced. Unlike Switch, for example, which saw 'Nintendo' trending everywhere the day the trailer came out.