Following up on the sudden halt of pre-orders for Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft’s X-Box comes clarifications and behind the scenes goodies. Not long ago, when pre-orders for GameCube, were being offered by various places, word was that the Nintendo pre-orders were not officially sanctioned by Nintendo. Essentially, stores were taking pre-orders without any promotional material—or a finalized launch date, availability or price. Citing these reasons, Nintendo called for an end to these pre-orders just recently. Fortunately, for the “early birds” out there, it seems most of the retailers will honor existing GameCube pre-orders. It also seems that a few places are still taking GameCube preorders, seemingly regardless of Nintendo’s wishes. Even though the hype is building, the “big N” is being conservative.

On the other hand, Microsoft have been providing retailers with promotional material and encouraging pre-orders for X-Box. So what’s the deal? Apparently Sony reps are telling retailers to remove any trace of X-Box stuff or be “stripped of PS2 allocations.” This began as rumor, though several retailers are confirming that this is happening. Not to sound like a jerk, but are there really any PS2s to be allocated?

Sure, we’re a Nintendo fan-site but I don’t bring this up to sling mud at Sony. Still, Sony milked the PS2 hype for as long before launch as they could. I’d even go as far as to say that Sony’s tooting-its-PS2-horn early-on was one of the main reasons Nintendophiles started craving any word on the N64’s successor back when OperationN2000 began. What gives them the right to suppress competition? Then again, it’s also reminiscent of Nintendo’s earlier days, when it was king of the hill and just as bad a bully. History repeats itself, I guess. Check out the scoop over at Fatbabies and sound off if you have any thoughts about GC pre-orders or Sony’s shady business practices.