Let's play a game. Who do you blame when it comes to Internet scalpers? These are people that buy stuff, knowing it is going to be rare, with the intention of reselling it later at a higher price. I am going to use the Nintendo NES Classic Mini and the upcoming Super Nintendo Classic Mini as examples here.
First, a little information on these two plug and play devices. Nintendo knows the demand is going to be high for these things. They have pre-orders available in just about every country outside the United States so they can easily judge demand projections. With this vital information in hand they still undercut production globally.
I understand, they don't want to have product sitting, unsold, on the shelves of stores (remember they had this problem with a lot of Wii games and hardware accessories). No company wants money tied up in product that is not selling so whenever possible they undercut production to create artificial demand.
A lot of fans won't get a Nintendo branded plug and play due to not having the funds (the NES Classic Mini launched on a Thursday into Friday night when most people get paid on Friday afternoon). These fans, if they truly want a unit have to pay high marked up scalper prices which further hurts their chances of getting a unit.
Scalpers are often viewed as vile creatures preying on the less fortunate. Sometimes this is true. Especially those that purchase a complete stores stock rather than one or two units, letting others that waited hours on end to get a unit or two.
Facebook was rampant with NES Classic Minis purchased in bulk by scalpers offering them up at $300+ each (and often getting that asking price due to demand).
Where do you lay the blame in this situation?
The sad truth is that this problem is not exclusive to consoles or anything other gaming-related. Anything that is being hyped suffers from this trend. I have been collecting exclusive sneakers for over 10 years now and it is getting harder and harder to acquire new releases. By harder I don't mean I can't just buy any with a few clicks of the mouse anymore, I mean buying it for retail price. Seeing how this trend is ever evolving and growing makes me sad... sites like Ebay used to be used to sell and buy second hand stuff, nowadays its a way for people to make a few quick bucks by selling high demand items. My problem however, is that this demand is mostly artificially created by 'scalpers', 'resellers' or whatever they are called in a specific subculture. They just buy up all inventory and sell for more. There are even entire youtube, facebook or instagram accounts solely dedicated to sell products for an outrageous price. It makes me sad it has evolved into this and I'm afraid there is no real solution other than everyone refusing to pay anything over retail...but that will sadly never happen of course.
Great reply. Sad but true, every bit of it.
I blame the stores that allow individuals to buy all or most of the product available instead of using a one per person policy. Scalpers are just being smart and abusing a flawed system.
As for the underproduction aspect, with the NES Classic it always seemed like a limited thing to me based on the promotion surrounding it, but most people interpreted it differently and were then shocked when it was sold out everywhere, so maybe I'm just wrong.
Nintendo has said they will produce many, many more SNES Classics in an attempt to actually meet the demand, and will end production at the end of the year, so this is a very different approach from the get-go. NES Classic was limited in number (and they miscalculated what that number should be), while SNES Classic is time-limited. Bottom line, they are both limited releases, on purpose, and I don't feel like Nintendo has been misleading people into expecting it to be massproduced - we did that to ourselves. I just wish they had publicly stated how many NES Classics they would produce before release, so it would have been 100% clear it's a limited release. The rest is unfortunate circumstance. TOO much public interest, too easily exploited by scalpers...that's just what hype does. Let's see if they will do limited better with the SNES Classic.
Switch, to me, is proof that they aren't underproducing to fuck over their fans. Yes, it is also facing shortages in a few countries (was no problem picking one up on release date without preorder here), but they have upped production significantly and even flew additional devices in for massive extra cost when they realized they miscalculated demand.
The first reason is Nintendo. They don't produce enough. Maybe of some license Problems? In this case, i am sure, Nintendo do this to have a high value on their products ( in this case the mini NES/SNES ). After 1 - 2 years all the Nintendo Games like Mario or Zelda still have a high value or at least the original store price.
" I blame the stores that allow individuals to buy all or most of the product available instead of using a one per person policy."
Yes, i think this is the second main reason, BUT in my opinion it is ok to buy at least 2. If you can buy 2 why not ? It isn't right to say " no sir, you can only buy 1 piece because other want also one ".
I have bought 5 of the SNES mini, why? Because some friends of mine want them too, but they dont look so often in the store :D So i bought 5 ( not in the same store )for me and my friends , and i am glad i had the chance to do so :)
The third reason ( again, in MY opinion ) is simple and sounds a bit hard: because people are stupid.
People are willing to pay the double or more of the original price, so its clear some other people will use this to get a higher price. Yes the mini NES/SNES is great, BUT its just a console, and if you pay 150 - 200 euros/ dollar, you have to be an idiot. I don't want to offend anybody, realy. I am a collector and i have seen this stupid behavior since 2010. In the last 2 years i sold a lot of my Games, i collected everything, but it makes no fun anymore. I am not willing to pay for NES/SNES games 100 - 500 euros/dollars (Earthbound, Vampires Kiss etc.).
So, if the people aren't paying 150 euros/dollar and more, they don't sell it (at least for such a high price). But as i said, people are stupid and willing to pay it.
So, MY 3 reasons for this:
Nintendo
Stores
People
You bring up a good point, one I intentionally left out of my initial article. Nintendo never said the NES Classic Mini was to be mass produced. That is rumor and people misunderstanding what was happening. I do think they missed an opportunity to at least do a larger run later, based on the demand. I understand they did do at least one more run of the plug and play prior to discontinuing it completely but that also was quite insufficient for demand.
I agree, stores should have a strict one unit per customer policy. They have no problem doing this during Black Friday sales - why is something that they will know will be in high demand such as these things any different?
I have heard of various stores allowing employees to purchase units prior to even giving the customer a chance. This screws customers out of a chance to get it, let alone more than one unit each.
I think the reason they didn't produce more probably had to do with them getting ready to mass-produce Switch soon after. We don't know all the details obviously, but there are probably just a select few trusted factories producing their products, and a limited number of new product can be produced by each. They could go out looking for a new one, but that might have come at such an additional financial strain to not be worth the profits from additional NES Classics sold. Considering they are struggling to meet Switch demand (and will almost certainly continue struggling until Christmas when Mario Odyssey is sure to turn Switch into a massively popular gift), I don't want to imagine the situation had they allocated more production to NES Classic at the expense of Switch units for the console launch.
For SNES Classic they had more time to plan and a more accurate assessment of demand based on NES Classic.
Great reply. Checked out your content and liked it so I followed. Keep up the great work man.
Thanks!
I'm certainly in favor of one per customer limits for orders on things like this. I don't care if you think it's your right to buy 50 of something you'll never use so you can resell them. You're a douche. :p
Isn't this just capitalism at its core? The right to use your financial situation to further your financial situation? Would it be different if this was a limited edition comic book or toy or food?
You have a right to do lots of stuff, but it doesn't mean you might not be an asshole for doing it.
I completely agree with your comment there.
i gave up on these consoles, there is a much better option called the rasperry pi which emulates multiple consoles and comes with much better controllers, the price is similar too
BLAME IT ALL ON THE CENTRAL BANKING SYSTEM....they are the reason we do things to eat bro....
Just go on eBay...buy a working original NES & Super NES and pick out the games you want! That's my plan once I have money to burn! 😉
Clone systems are getting quite good at emulating the inner workings of the hardware. The problem here is the cost of the games. Some of the included games on the SNES Classic Mini go for more than the system (or are illegal at all to own in the case of Star Fox 2).
Why illegal?
Nintendo never released it in the United States, nor in English. Two roms appeared online in the early 2000's. Fans later translated them and they have proliferated the net since.
The only legal way to own an English version of Star Fox 2 will be the SNES Classic mini when it releases.
Very interesting . I didn't know that. Cool story bro!