Topic: NES Classic and Nintendo's futility trying to meet demand.

[Soren]

So...how many times does Nintendo have to fail in order to understand that their failure to meet demand for their products at launch is hurting their already fragile business? They keep doing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

The announcement of the NES Classic was a viral hit and it tapped into a lot of people who either are casual gamers or lapsed gamers. It touched into that nostalgia. Nintendo had to understand that I was going to deliver a hit. And yet here were once again, with hardcore gamers and scalpers being the only people who can buy the system at launch and stores selling out their stock almost instantly. Check one of the links I posted above and you'll see journalists talking about how many pageviews their NES Classic stories got. Most stores got units in the double digits, going from as low as 20 to as many as 80. Some stores even got as few as 5 units! Crazy!

And fine, you want to talk me out of being angry because Limited Editions sell out in 2 minutes, go right ahead. But this was a product aimed at a casual market and the fact that people won't be able to buy it in the near future is a bit frustrating. Specially when I'm thinking of getting one as a gift for several people. It's insane.

For the record, I was able to get an NES Classic at a local Wal-Mart, after I went to my local Best Buy and saw a line of 100+ people wanting to buy 80 systems. Both stores had a 1 system per customer limit.

[ShyGuy]

dang it.

[Oedo]

Well, on the slightly brighter side, there's this via Nintendo of America:

There will be a steady flow of additional systems through the holiday shopping season and into the new year. 2/3

After having the same thing happen with so many of their products over the past couple of years, it is pretty darn inexcusable for them to fall well short of meeting demand at launch again. But if they do manage to deliver a steady supply of additional units in a timely fashion, it'll at least be a marked improvement over the amiibo or GameCube adapter situation.

[Kairon]

They seem to be having a lot of misses lately about what items will be in demand versus what items won't be in demand. Just look at the overstock of Animal Crossing Amiibo and Wii U, versus the understock of Amiibo Launch Waves and NES Classic.

Whoever predicts consumer demand for Nintendo Corporate these days needs to have their tea table upended.

[Luigi Dude]

Yeah it's pretty fucking pathetic Nintendo keeps undershipping products that are guaranteed hits.  The Wii was at least understandable since they were coming off the Gamecube and the design and appeal of the system was unproven and had no idea it'd be as big as it did, but the NES Classic being this hard to find is pure bullshit.  Especially since this isn't even a new system like the Wii that will at least keep having new games coming out in the future.  This is a one and done deal which they should have had 10 million plus units ready to ship since something like the NES Classic is going to be much easier to the casual audience to forget about if they can't find the damn thing.

Seriously this type of incompetence is what worries me the most about the Switch.  Even if games like Zelda deliver, Nintendo could easily find a way to **** things up with a total lack of systems post launch that just kill the momentum. 

[Soren]

Well, on the slightly brighter side, there's this via Nintendo of America:

There will be a steady flow of additional systems through the holiday shopping season and into the new year. 2/3

So Wal-Marts in Puerto Rico have already said they don't expect new shipments until December 1. So goodbye to any potential Black Friday sales. Also, they got a total of 60 units for one store. That's all. Again, ridiculous.

[Ian Sane]

What, Nintendo failing to learn something?  Get out of town!

It isn't surprising though.  Any time I think of "this is the logical course of action" Nintendo does nearly the opposite or somehow finds some new way to go about things that I could never guess because I'm not a crazy person.  Someday Nintendo will produce a healthy amount of a new product... and it will be the stupidest product that no one wants and they'll suffer big time for overproducing it.

If they didn't think this would be a popular item for Christmas why even make it?  The Wii U is toast and the Switch isn't out until next year so they needed something to carry their ass for Christmas and this seems like a product intentionally designed to do so.  It's very much a Christmas gift kind of product - the sort of thing that's a popular item during the Christmas shopping season and then fades away after that.  By the time the Wii U is out the NES Classic is just not going to have the buzz around it anymore so if Nintendo can't meet the demand and then in January drops a big shipment THOSE are going to be the unsold items eating up shelf space.  Now until December 24th is peak market for this and being too conservative is a grand way to completely bugger this all up.  The sales potential is based a lot on this being a Christmas gift.  They will sell what they can release in time to work as a gift and then I expect sales to drop off a cliff.  Timing is what mattered here and now Nintendo is almost certainly going to have the very thing they were trying to avoid happen.  They'll stupidly get the units out too late and it won't sell when the same amount of units probably would if they were on shelves before Christmas!

The Switch does surprise me because the trademark obvious-and-easily-avoidable Nintendo fuckup isn't there.  Or has it just not been revealed to us yet?  I don't want that to happen but this is the same Nintendo so there is that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.  The NES Classic is a hard idea to screw up but Nintendo didn't make enough supply and the cords are like 2 feet long.  They somehow found a way to make some wacky mistakes on an idea that is easy to do right and that they otherwise did get right.

[ejamer]

I still think Nintendo prefers the buzz from understocking highly desirable items over making their customers happy.  Most casuals will probably view this as a prime gift item, so as long as stock keeps rolling in between now and Christmas, they won't get too stressed.

[ThePerm]

Even worse some people are confusing the NES Classic with the Switch......


Also, on the other hand Nintendo is no longer coming off of a failed system launch. Their last system sold out!

[Khushrenada]

The Switch does surprise me because the trademark obvious-and-easily-avoidable Nintendo fuckup isn't there.  Or has it just not been revealed to us yet?  I don't want that to happen but this is the same Nintendo so there is that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Don't worry. The vitality sensor implementation will soon be revealed to give you the ammo you need to attack the system and Nintendo's penchant for odd hardware choices.

[lolmonade]

Personally decided I wouldn't be buying this for myself, but a friend on travel asked me to pick one up for him if I could.

I haven't bothered checking stores because my schedule is too busy, but I think it's safe to assume those are all gone.

Amazon's "launch" today was a cluster.  I was at my computer 10 mins before they were supposed to go on sale, and the page crashed on and off while it showed available, each time I hit add to cart my cart showed empty.  Eventually the page crashed, and by the time it came back up, was unavailable.

Not surprised by the outcome, but you'd think a product like the NES Mini would be a good enough value proposition to where they'd maybe be a bit braver with their supply chain.

[BranDonk Kong]

60 for one store is a lot. The local Walmart here got 6. GameStop got 6.

[Stratos]

There is a rumor on reddit that Amazon only had about 34 units available...


I missed out and so did my wife. Turns out she does listen and tried to order me one for Christmas. I refuse to go hunting for one, especially on Black Friday. So I'll wait for the new year, though I might just save the cash to go towards the Switch launch.

[Soren]

60 for one store is a lot. The local Walmart here got 6. GameStop got 6.

We have a total of 19 Wal-Mart stores. Only one store got stock.

[Spak-Spang]

On the other hand the NES console might have been a desperate product to have SOMETHING out for Christmas, and there was no way to predict if a system only have old emulated games would sell.  This was always a stop gap product, created for a very limited run to fill a whole in the holiday schedule to make money.  Nintendo has done that...and I am sure they will continue to sell them into next year, but they don't want the NES system to take any hype away from SWITCH when it is out. 

Yes, they could have sold more, but they also could have sold much less, and since this product was only created to help Nintendo have a profit and sales during the holiday season it makes sense.

[nickmitch]

I wonder how much planning went into this launch.  Looking at the timing of the release, it makes me think Nintendo needed to fill the gap in the Holiday lineup.  They didn't have Zelda, didn't have the Switch, and Paper Mario wasn't gonna cut it.  But Nintendo probably wasn't 100% sure about not having the Switch out in time until either late last year or early this year.  If that's true, then the NES Classic was probably a last minute design to guarantee some buzz this holiday.  So, Nintendo (who still has to make enough Switches for lunch) probably couldn't crank out enough NES Classics. 

Alt theory: they're doing shortages on purposes to maintain hype.

[Kairon]

We're just arguing about degrees of error though. Either Nintendo honestly under-estimated the at-launch demand for this product, or they didn't give themselves enough time to address it, or they are trying to maintain discussion around the brand by generating news stories about a (manufactured) shortage, or something else, or some combination...

Either way, Nintendo made a mistake somewhere by having a marketing hole to plug, mis-estimating demand, not properly planning... no matter where the exact blame lies, or how unintentional the mistake, Nintendo is a billion dollar gaming company who's been doing this for years and HAS to do better if they want to be able to continue contributing in this market and this medium.

[Soren]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=224209182&postcount=324


I don't want the believe this and I think it's more hearsay and speculation than anything. But at the same time I think it might be true and if so it's terrible.

[Evan_B]

Can I be quite honest?

Even with the "pros" of the emulation quality, I also don't understand why anyone would want these things. I could see maybe wanting a SNES Mini, but even then, it would likely be clogged with Nintendo releases that I've- again- already played. The only reason I could see someone wanting this is out of nostalgia and an overwhelming collectors' complex. I don't think Nintendo is in the wrong for having poor distribution, and I'm genuinely shocked at the frenzy to buy.

[Stratos]

It is a combination of coolness factor, nostalgia, and a lack of any other compelling products from them during their peak sales season. Also, the fact it is a tiny system means it can more easily slip into the corner of a crowded entertainment system shelf.

[Luigi Dude]

The only reason I could see someone wanting this is out of nostalgia and an overwhelming collectors' complex. I don't think Nintendo is in the wrong for having poor distribution, and I'm genuinely shocked at the frenzy to buy.

That's exactly the reason why Nintendo should have known this thing would be huge.  It's been over 30 years since the NES was released and this thing allows people who grew up with the system to have 30 of it's most famous games on one device for only $60.  The small message board crowd on the internet like yourself can just say, "I can still replay them on my NES or use an emulator" but for 99% of people who had an NES as kids either don't own the system anymore, have one and it doesn't work, or it's buried somewhere in their parents basement or attic. 

Plus the already having these games on an emulator doesn't work either since the majority of the gaming community doesn't use emulators or even know how they work in the first place.  Same thing with the Virtual Console on the Wii and Wii U having these games as well, since Nintendo did a terrible job of advertising these aspect of their systems to the mass public.  To most people, the NES Classic is the first way to replay all these old games from their childhood for such a cheap price and Nintendo is stupid to not realize just how big this was going to be.

[nickmitch]

I wouldn't know where Nintendo would get the idea that anyone who would want this would already have the games.  The Wii U under sold by a lot.  Most people do not have Wiis still plugged in.  The 3DS isn't as ubiquitous of a product as the NES was. 

[Evan_B]

I highly doubt people are nostalgic for even half of the games in the NES Classic's library. I see how hard you're trying to push nostalgia as a selling factor, but I just find it extremely hard to believe. Maybe I'm still young and foolish.

[pokepal148]

Bubble Bobble is the best NES game, what are you talking about?

[Soren]

I highly doubt people are nostalgic for even half of the games in the NES Classic's library. I see how hard you're trying to push nostalgia as a selling factor, but I just find it extremely hard to believe. Maybe I'm still young and foolish.

Of the 30 games offered, I only owned two (Mario 1 and 3). Nostalgia in this case isn't only about the games. It's about the system, the controllers, the overall gameplay and graphical quality. In part it's about a place and time in your life. About remembering.

I have a picture of me from Christmas getting an NES Action Set bundle when I was 4 years old. I want to re-create that picture this holiday but with old-ass me holding the NES Classic Edition box. That's probably a nostalgic feeling many other people have.