Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/11/nintendowned-amazon-sells-out-of-nes-classic-editions-in-null-seconds/

by smaili • 10 years ago

272 250 10 years ago

typicalrunt2• 10 years ago

I grok capitalism and even like it. But there are times where it is difficult to like it. In this case, people rushed to buy this product for the sole purpose of reselling it for 8x. What's wrong with our society that some people can be so morally bankrupt and bereft of good sense.

In the end, I think these scalpers won't sell for 8x because anintendo will just pump out more product. Still, it is sad to see this happen.

crooked-v• 10 years ago

bereft of good sense

Investing money in something that is nigh-guaranteed to have excellent returns is very good sense for anyone with the time and effort to spend on reselling the product.

edgarvaldes• 10 years ago

And, let's be sincere here, this is not some essential item, like food or shelter.

e40• 10 years ago

What's wrong with our society that some people can be so morally bankrupt and bereft of good sense.

This type of behavior is literally all around us. I recently listened to a podcast about this exact phenomenon. It featured a couple that had a special rug that drove cats crazy. They sold it on amazon for ~$35. A bunch of people bought them up and sold them on ebay for a lot more, using the drop-ship method (the reseller ordered it using their amazon account with the buyers shipping address).

When people realized they were being ripped off, they returned it to the original seller, who had to handle the claims due to requirements by amazon. They lost 10's of thousands of $$. The creator called some of the people doing this and they laughed him off, telling him they were doing nothing wrong.

It was on planet money's podcast, I think. I can try and find it if you're curious.

toomuchtodo• 10 years ago

The problem isn't the arbitrage (which is a core component of capitalism and profit [1]) these people are utilizing, its Amazon's draconian policy towards sellers.

[1] Hat tip to patio11: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9087930

They're likely using one of the world's oldest business models: "Buy things for $1, sell them for $2."

kbenson3• 10 years ago

Episode 724: Cat Scam[1]

1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/14/493810206/episo...

Lawtonfogle• 10 years ago

The problem is finding which point was wrong. What behavior was done here that should be discouraged or banned by society? People don't like the outcome, but where should the government intervene?

childifchaos• 10 years ago

How is this "morally bankrupt"? It's just smart. Every business on earth would do this in there sector if they had the chance.

What's wrong with a smart and clever individual buying this to resell at 8x? It's not hurting anyone, it's just a stupid retro console.

What's wrong with society? People are struggling and getting screwed over by governments and big business, they badly need income and here is a small opportunity to get a piece of that pie.

Ultimately someone that wants the product who is happy to pay the price that it is sold for, because they deem it worth that price, ends up with the product in there life. And someone else manages to profit to, to gain some much needed income so they can purchase something they want in there life.

Hardly morally bankrupt. There is no change in the outcome here. There are still the same amount of people with these consoles, enjoying them as before. Nobody is hurt.

In fact you could argue that someone doing this is a net gain, because two people gain instead of one. Someone made a profit that wouldn't otherwise and someone got the console they wanted (and obviously didn't care about the price)

eridius6• 10 years ago

It's not hurting anyone, it's just a stupid retro console.

It's hurting the people who are forced to pay $600 for a $60 item because they need one (e.g. a must-have gift for someone).

It's hurting the people who wanted to buy one for $60 but cannot afford to buy one for $600.

So yeah, it's hurting basically everybody who had any interest in buying the product.

derefr3• 10 years ago

Market arbitrage is 'wrong' insofar as, if someone "deems [the product] worth that price", then the compensation for the created value should go to the people who created that value. To do otherwise is to deprive the market of the signalling tokens (dollars) it uses to propagate information about what things there should be more of, back to the people who make things.

The ultimate arbitrage, after all, is communism, where a central actor soaks up all the profits, and then is left with the responsibility of figuring out who should make more of what themselves, because hell if the producers know.

ferdbold• 10 years ago

We're not talking about "smart and clever individuals" here. We're talking about scalper bots gaming the system by buying all of the product literally seconds after the seller flipped the switch. This isn't fair for the consumer at all as the product has literally been taken hostage by some third-party with unfair advantage. It's the 21st century equivalent to plundering trade routes.

Also, I don't think the nature of the product has any influence on the morals of the practice, I find it despicable no matter what is being sold.

r00fus• 10 years ago

I really don't see why Nintendo didn't produce a bit more on launch - I mean, they're not some kickstarter newbie - don't they have some skills in demand-forecasting?

jedberg• 10 years ago

When you hear about how the latest Nintendo is sold out everywhere, it makes you want one more.

They have slow production on purpose. If you could walk into any store and get one, it wouldn't be nearly as big a deal.

Spooky23• 10 years ago

It spikes demand. Crazy parents run all over the place looking for it.

The winners are Nintendo, who gets sales in the 1Q, which is normally death for this kind of product, and the retailers, who get parents visiting daily and buying other crap.

My brother spent weeks looking for the "cream pie in the face game" last year. In the process, he picked up a half dozen other board games.

salmonet• 10 years ago

Nintendo deserves some of the blame. They most likely created this shortage on purpose to create press.

AndrewKemendo4• 10 years ago

This is one way that markets clear prices when demand edges production. There's are many ways to do it, for example auctions. In this case the price sensitivity of the market is lower than the producer set, so the market is willing to pay more for the good than the product is selling it at.

When this pricing mismatch happens, there is the ability to close the pricing gap through repricing by a third party otherwise known as arbitrage.

This is one of the more important functional requirements for a market and the producer can take advantage of this based on how they price. Nintendo could have priced the system much higher and seen the same output but it may not have made as big if a splash, so really it's Nintendo driving this frenzy because they and all other major companies are good at this.

It's not a big it's a feature (really in this case).

metaphor7• 10 years ago

Agreed. It's quite sad that the impetus is on Nintendo to flood the market with product. As of this post, there were 3,800+ posts on eBay[1]; there's at least an entire page-full listing Buy It Now @ $1000 or more.

[1] http://www.ebay.com/sch/?_nkw=nes%20classic%20edition

savanaly4• 10 years ago

I feel like if you truly groked capitalism, you would be able to point out lots of its flaws, but also to realize that scalping is definitely not one of them.

With supply limited like this, the optimal social outcome is for the X units produced to go to the X people in the world who would value them most, in other words the people who would be willing to pay the most (only exception I can think of to this is if someone values it at V dollars and only has a net worth of W dollars where W < V, but for the sums we're talking about with the NES I think almost everyone either has or can scrounge up V).

In the final accounting with reselling on amazon, the goods end up where they are most highly valued. Sure, if we held a lottery to see who gets to buy the NESs at the sticker price rather than auctioning them, the people winning the lottery would be more happy than the people who end up winning the auction. But as a whole, society would be impoverished since it's an inefficient distribution (no room to prove it in a HN post, but it's not too hard to work out on paper when tallying up the welfare of nintendo, the scalpers and all the people who get to buy the NES under one scenario or the other).

typicalrunt2• 10 years ago

I do understand capitalism, the point I made was that sometimes I don't have to like it. Scalping included.

I don't need to prove my knowledge to you by pointing out lots of capitalism's flaws. Instead of reading my comment carefully, you decided to teach me about how basic supply and demand operate. Jesus, you are a self-absorbed piece of work.

jandrese2• 10 years ago

Scalping is definitely sub-optimal. The reason being that it rewards a middleman, not the person doing the effort. It discourages labor.

A proper capitalist system for an event like a concert would have everybody enter bids for the seats, and once the venue fills up (or on the date of the event) the seats are assigned based on the bids. Of course if you're poor and the event is popular then capitalism says you're SOL. Money is everything and without money you are nothing.

One nice thing about this system is that prices are set by the people, not by the venue. People pay exactly what they think the performance is worth and no more. Artists get direct feedback as to how popular their act is.

Chinjut• 10 years ago

The person willing to pay the most may not be the person who most desires it, considering the differing marginal utility of money across the vast spectrum of income/wealth inequality. Trump can buy on a lark what I would only shell out for as a matter of deepest, life-or-death desire.

inimino• 10 years ago

Why do you think this is morally bankrupt? We aren't talking about wheat, but a superfluous luxury item. Where's the moral argument?

morgante2• 10 years ago

What exactly is "morally bankrupt" about buying a mispriced good and reselling it at a proper price?

People get very morally righteous about scalping, but I don't understand why at all. Resellers are correcting a distortion in the market and providing a value-added service.

pluma• 10 years ago

The only value they add is amplifying the scarcity.

How it normally works is this:

* Some person sells something locally for $x

* There is demand outside that location for the same product

* Someone buys the product locally for $x and sells it elsewhere for $y > $x

* Customers are provided access to a product they would otherwise not be aware of or not have access to, the reseller makes money from the margin, the producer can produce and sell more product, everybody wins

How it works in this case:

* Some person sells something for price $x at a limited quantity

* Someone buys up all the product for $x and resells it for $y > $x

* Customers are prevented from accessing the product at the original price, the reseller makes money from the margin, the producer doesn't gain any advantage, only the reseller wins

Can you honestly not see how this is different? It's morally bankrupt because it offers no value to anyone and entirely profits from the charity of the producer who sells a product below market value. And in the worst case the reseller ends up with tons of unsold product and is forced to dump it later or even throw it away completely (which depending on the margins may still turn a profit overall).

z3t4• 10 years ago

With high margins more entreprenors will enter the market. But in this case nintendo have a monopoly.

TeMPOraL6• 10 years ago

What's wrong with our society that some people can be so morally bankrupt and bereft of good sense.

I don't know, but I shun, punish (by refusing to do business with them) and counter-market such people whenever I can. It's one thing to take a good and resell it for a larger price to a different audience; you're in essence making it more accessible and also take on some distribution headache, and thus deserve to cash in. That's how almost every brick and mortar store works. But it's another thing to buy off someone's stock only to turn around and resell it for more to the same customer base. That's, in my opinion, just plain sliminess.

matwood3• 10 years ago

What's wrong with our society that some people can be so morally bankrupt and bereft of good sense. In the end, I think these scalpers won't sell for 8x because anintendo will just pump out more product. Still, it is sad to see this happen.

Morally? It's a video game. Scalpers are fine. Blame Nintendo for not making more of them or charging a higher price so the limited supply met demand. Everyone will have their NES Classic in a month or two.

nilved• 10 years ago

It might not have seemed that way in writing, but in reading your post is contradictory. If the motivation for a person to do this is lost on you, you don't grok capitalism; and if that bothers you, you don't like capitalism.

AndrewKemendo4• 10 years ago

Clearly thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of gamers were sitting on the product page hammering the F5 key and some random selection thereof got their wish.

I highly doubt that. My guess is that third party resellers used bots to purchase them all.

Why wouldn't tc come to the same conclusion?

Edit. yep here's one on eBay for $500+:

http://m.ebay.com/itm/New-Nintendo-NES-Classic-Edition-Conso...

minimaxir• 10 years ago

Nintendo has had a history of unexplainable supply shortages for in-demand items. (case in point: Amiibo)

tostitos1979• 10 years ago

Ha .. not unexplained. I am part of a few "deals" websites. People inexplicably want to collect all of them! They have predictions on what Amibos will sell out, so people can buy 'em sooner rather than later. Lots of crazy stuff. I thought it was to make a profit but it seems there are genuine collectors out there.

DanielleMolloy• 10 years ago

Also this year's Fire Emblem Limited Edition (really frustrating, the box is excellent – they are now sold for at least 2x the original price) and probably any 3DS special edition.

But consumers with too much money are also helping this "economy" with their purchase decisions. That eBay NES Classic in the parent comment was just sold for $610, more than 10x the retail price, and there are many other offerings. Just take a look at the completed listings and the prices that were paid.

rickyc0912• 10 years ago

Don't forget the Pokemon Go Plus which is still out of stock. https://smile.amazon.com/Nintendo-Bluetooth-Bracelet-Not-Mac...

551199• 10 years ago

They probably use scarcity to hype the product.

See Cialdini's Influence.

gm-conspiracy2• 10 years ago

$610 was the selling price.

Blaaguuu• 10 years ago

Who in the world wants these so badly? I'm excited to get one... but it's not like I'm in a huge rush to play 30 year old games... If I really wanted to play them right now, I could download an emulator.

cpayne• 10 years ago

Makes for a good story.

I mean, how many would they have made? 2,000?

They know they can do a second run before Christmas. By then they would know if they should make 20,000 or 200,000...

paulgerhardt2• 10 years ago

Traditionally, toy companies will have a "tent pole" item they hype up and sell out of before Christmas (originally Cabbage Patch Kids but later on Elmo, Wii, etc.) This forces parents to less desirable accessory products for Christmas. Mysteriously after Christmas the tent pole item is in stock.

Eric Clark's book "The Real Toy Story" goes into the origin of this and other trends [1]. Nobody is really wild about the idea, but the industry is kind of forced into it because sales are literally all within a 3 week period. Miss it and you're dead. Tactics like the 'high demand, low availability' hot Christmas toy are a matter of survival.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Real-Toy-Story-Ruthless-Consumers/dp/...

metaphor7• 10 years ago

I mean, how many would they have made? 2,000?

I'm imagining at least an order of magnitude more ballpark-judging by $60 price point and tooling costs for enclosure molds alone.

bduerst2• 10 years ago

This is 100% drop shipping.

shapov• 10 years ago

That is not at all what drop shipping is.

  Drop shipping is a supply chain management method in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer, another retailer, or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer

savanaly4• 10 years ago

Just because you found one for sale on ebay doesn't prove the part about the bots at all...

nommm-nommm8• 10 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping/comments/5ba7x3/nintendo_n...

a_bonobo2• 10 years ago

In Australia, the NES Classic Edition came out on Thursday - the physical copies at Target etc. too were sold out in minutes, too. Some of the Facebook comments said that their local shop only got a few boxes which were gone mmediately: https://www.facebook.com/NintendoAUNZ/videos/714922218664914...

As usual, Nintendo doesn't get their customers and is completely unprepared.

dgemm• 10 years ago

I think they know exactly what they're doing. Selling out in minutes causes news stories, and here we are.

cjdulberger• 10 years ago

Reminds me of the initial release of the Wii. Seems like a strategy to create scarcity and increase demand.

rubyfan• 10 years ago

There are over 2000 negative reviews on the Amazon page from people complaining that they were there at 5 and go nothing but errors (myself included).

hartator• 10 years ago

Amazon own website can't run properly on AWS?

csulmone• 10 years ago

I managed to pick one up on the Amazon mobile app. I had to do it exactly at the right time, but there wasn't an issue other than page load slowdown.

mikiem5• 10 years ago

I can confirm that this is a thing... a bigger thing than one might think. I run an IaaS cloud provider and I know off the top of my head several customers of ours who each maintain a fleet of VMs to do this for a variety of products. Eg: Limited edition shoes, show tickets, etc. Some of our customers who do this keep the VMs running and some fire them up only when needed. Some use custom software and scripts and some use purchased software designed specifically for the sites and products they want to beat others to.

smaili• 10 years ago

Reminds me of why I still prefer brick and mortar. Yes you may have to camp out, but it definitely has a better success rate than trying to compete against machines.

jakobegger• 10 years ago

How do you know that people are doing this with your VMs?

FullMtlAlcoholc• 10 years ago

Would including a CAPTCHA for items expected to sell out quickly prevent this?

mangeletti• 10 years ago

I was doing this (refreshing).

I had the Amazon app open on my phone and the website on my MacBook. I added it to my cart from the app at approx 14:00:01 ET, and by the time I clicked the cart and then checkout I got an error message saying the item was sold out.

I was so pissed that this happened, because I had been planning to follow this diligently since the day it was announced, and I had no less than 3 calendar events in my phone so that my day would be replete with reminders. I had the other websites that were supposedly selling it open as well, as a failed backup plan.

I should have written a script.

nicolewhite• 10 years ago

My gf just got one at Best Buy. They seem to have plenty.

ecommerceguy• 10 years ago

(Re)seller here. I got one the old fashioned way, by pounding the refresh button. I actually am unaware of a bot you speak of... do you have an example?

The key to this hustle is to never tell your friends that you got one because their con of 'it's for my kids' is incessant.

Looking at some of the eBay sales data already a few have gone for over 600.

Yay for me!

robk2• 10 years ago

This has been going on since the first days of ecom. It's just scripters and bots that are more easy to get ahold of now so even more people do it. But the demand is real if you look at the completed auctions! Scammers don't let the auctions complete since they have to pay fees on them. There are a shocking number of people who just don't mind paying up for something hot.

Disclosure: I did it in college for beer money - http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/17/us/sony-toy-is-less-costly...

Shivetya• 10 years ago

Isn't this similar to the BF and sales throughout the season with Amazon. Items come up for sale only to be gone instantly (or what appears as such)

morganvachon• 10 years ago

Not just eBayers using bots. They are popping up on local online garage sale pages and on Craigslist for $200+, by what appears to be soccer moms for the most part.

NetStrikeForce• 10 years ago

That's the answer.

Actually Amazon itself has listing from 3rd party sellers at crazy prices.

I was tempted to buy one, even at ~£70. Then I looked at my desk and saw my Rapsberry Pi with this case http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3D-Printed-NES-inspired-Raspberry-... and a USB NES control replica and decided to forget about the mini NES.

Kenji• 10 years ago

All of these outages could be prevented by opening sales randomly in time windows and in small waves. Or with preordering. The same applies to sales with price reductions, etc. All these companies shoot themselves in the foot with stunts like that. Why not make it more expensive if there is such a demand, anyway?

serge2k2• 10 years ago

Why not make it more expensive if there is such a demand

Is demand really high enough to support a higher price? Nintendo is infamous for putting out a short supply.

I don't understand why Amazon can't just take preorders for the next batch.

gm-conspiracy2• 10 years ago

Only half of my Nintendo holiday arbitrage attempts have been successful.

There will be limited availability for a short time, then a flood of product.

covercash• 10 years ago

When I was younger, half the fun was trying to obtain the limited availability consoles!! Now it's no longer fun, just refresh a page and hope resellers don't buy up inventory before you can grab one.

I'm still impressed that my mom somehow managed to get me an n64 for that first Christmas they were available! I was in disbelief since I was certain they were impossible to get. 13yo me had all the local toy store #s memorized and I'd call every day asking if they received any shipments. No dice.

Shadows of the Empire on Christmas morning was so awesome! Tripping up those AT-ATs that morning was one of the more memorable moments in my gaming history.

A few months prior, for my best friend's September birthday, his mom took us to Toysrus and let him pick either the just released n64 +1 game OR the on-sale SegaCD and a bunch of games. He chose... poorly.

oxide• 10 years ago

This kind of stuff is par for the course with Nintendo hardware from what I can tell. Is it deliberate? If so, does perceived scarcity drive more sales, or are they just sick of warehousing unsold products?

matmann2001• 10 years ago

Well, they did just get free advertising in the form of this TechCrunch article. Wouldn't be surprised if other news outlets pick on up on the story as well, with the spin of "the hot new Christmas toy".

From that perspective, having short supply on release day seems like a decent plan. Once they get the publicity, I bet the supply increases to match demand within the following month.

pingec• 10 years ago

Funny thing, they are in stock in the local electronics store in my small hometown in Slovenia :)

Keyframe• 10 years ago

Where at? I'm in Croatia and I really wanted to buy one!

mrfusion7• 10 years ago

Go buy a batch and get on eBay.

nashashmi• 10 years ago

Anybody know if Sega Genesis is also coming out in similar fashion?

mantis369• 10 years ago

I doubt it. I walked past a whole shelf of Sega Genesis emulation boxes at Target. That and the Atari Flashback 7 seem to be heavily stocked.

skocznymroczny• 10 years ago

http://www.news.com.au/technology/home-entertainment/gaming/...

darkstar999• 10 years ago

The Amazon reviews got brigaded with 1 star reviews. They should work on preventing this.

serge2k2• 10 years ago

Why? Nintendo decided to once again screw over their fans with their supply games. People are getting back at them for it.

caperstory• 10 years ago

Patience!!!!!!!!!

You are driving me insane! Go outside and play.

LeoPanthera• 10 years ago

Why? Because bitching at Nintendo is not a review of the product. Obviously.

IgorPartola2• 10 years ago

Sounds like Nintendo, along with a bunch of other companies, need to take a page out of USSR's book. The way it worked there is that you put your name on the list to buy, say, a car. And when the car is actually manufactured, you get to buy it. Big product launches like this could really benefit from a system like that.

I know some places already do this: x.ai comes to mind. They even had a thing where you could move yourself up in the queue by getting others to sign up.

kaoD• 10 years ago

How would this fix the problem? Botters would just bot the list instead.

It worked in the USSR because USSR.

gohrt4• 10 years ago

Name / address / Credit card registration.

ovao• 10 years ago

It is true that many consumers would benefit from such systems, but unfortunately, drumming up demand by trickling supply into the market is Nintendo's modus operandi.

dawnerd• 10 years ago

could have just done pre orders like apple and slip the shipping date as the list gets longer. It's not like companies don't have a solution. It's just Nintendo being Nintendo.

MrFoof• 10 years ago

This actually does happen with some car manufacturers. The one I'm most familiar with (having experience with the process) is Porsche with their GT cars and "collector grade vehicles".

Want the next 911 GT3 RS? The best way to guarantee you get one is to give a dealer a deposit (usually just $5000) for "the next GT3 RS" at least 3 years before the vehicle is officially announced. You do have to wait for that dealer to get an allocation (so often you'll place a deposit with multiple dealers who sell a lot of 911s), but when they pop you get yours assuming you were early enough in line. A few long-term repeat customers may get bumped ahead of you in line, but at the end of the day you'll get your car.

There was a lot of anger at the availability of the Cayman GT4, but despite never being a prior Porsche owner I had the opportunity to pass on it twice (for a much harder to get Boxster Spyder) because I knew how the process went, and had deposits for non-existant cars with multiple dealers years before they were announced.

pjlegato• 10 years ago

The way it worked in the USSR was actually more like: you put your name on the list to buy a car. The local party boss' cousin wants a car, too, and he doesn't have to wait on the list, he gets the car that's being manufactured. And the factory director's brother wants a car, too. And his nephew. And the guy he is trading cars to for steel to make more cars. And that guy's cousin wants a car, too. All these people get to skip ahead of you on the list, because they have better connections than you do. So you wait ten years or so for an ordinary car.

IgorPartola2• 10 years ago

This is accurate.

wsc981• 10 years ago

It's not really related, but it reminds me of this joke about buying cars in the USSR as told by Ronald Reagan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLW7r4o2_Ow

UnoriginalGuy• 10 years ago

Amazon should do popular items like this using a lottery system to hurt the advantage bots, scripts, and people with lower latency have.

- You can enter the item lottery for a longer period (e.g. 60 minutes).

- Lottery winners are picked at random, not based on entry time.

- Max one entry per household (remove entries with duplicate mailing addresses, duplicate credit cards, and duplicate email addresses).

- Once someone wins they have a window to purchase (e.g. 3 hours). If they fail to purchase then the lottery picks a new winner.

Now obviously cheats will still exist, but at least they're all on a fairer playing field with normal purchasers.

gohrt4• 10 years ago

MBA Interview pro-tip: Amazon should make NES a Prime-only item.

mrfusion7• 10 years ago

Wow very smart! How do businesses not think of these things?

I even got an impression from their nes classic page like they were saying "meh, we are not really sure if we sell this why do you want it"

Jach• 10 years ago

https://www.amazon.com/treasuretruck had it today.

madengr• 10 years ago

I wonder if these things are timed for release once a target audience hits a certain age? What is that age?

It was about 8 years between 1st gen consoles (Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision) and 2nd gen (Nintendo). The retro-rerelease of 1st gen was about 8 years ago. I am 45 and am nostalgic about 1st gen. I was in high school for 2nd gen; no nostalgia, uninterested.

So do these retro-rerelease target those in their late 30's. Mid life crisis yearning for nostalgia?

gohrt4• 10 years ago

What was the "Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision" retro-release? Seems like a newish phenomenon due to falling cost of production.

Objectively, (if you put a complete novice kid in front of a console), NES and SNES's good/great games are the best.

km3k• 10 years ago

madengr is right, the Atari ones have been available since 2004. They've put out a new version of it every other year or so. This year is their 7th version of the Atari Flashback. https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Flashback-7-Classic-Game-Consol...

There's ones for Intellivision (https://www.amazon.com/IntelliVision-AtGames-Flashback-Class... ) and Colecovision ( https://www.amazon.com/ColecoVision-AtGames-Flashback-Classi... ) too, but those have only been available for the last few years.

robk2• 10 years ago

I think probably the band of people born from about 1975-82 are probably the right segment. http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/04/us-births-per-year...

greenmountin• 10 years ago

Thought of this when I was browsing AliExpress for Singles Day, today, and found this:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Video-Game-Projector-PGS-Con...

Available cheap for another 8 hours, maybe something to tide them over?

lucaspiller• 10 years ago

The fact that these projectors have such low resolution, playing retro games is about all they are good for.

mrfusion7• 10 years ago

Why doesn't Nintendo just raise their prices to where supply equals demand? They're leaving So much money on the table for scalpers.

Or why not first release an expensive limited edition while they scale up production?

metaphor7• 10 years ago

Hindsight is 20/20.

Retric• 10 years ago

Bad press.

corysama• 10 years ago

Yep. It would be very bad for the brand if the device came out at a very high price initially.

Nintendo has to pick a price for the long term, ship with it and stick with it. Short term profit opportunities would have a very large long term cost.

jonknee2• 10 years ago

Because now they get to be on the news with a bunch of stories talking about how hot their new product is.

reustle• 10 years ago

Exactly. I wouldn't have even known they released an official NES-raspberry-pi-esque product otherwise.

danhak• 10 years ago

Because the value of the free marketing they've just generated dwarfs the value that's being captured by scalpers.

wepple• 10 years ago

these things would've cost next to nothing to make, and they figure they can sell a large enough volume at a low price that they'd net more than upping the price slightly and selling substantially less.

gaur• 10 years ago

Why doesn't Nintendo just raise their prices to where supply equals demand?

"Raise prices" is not the solution to all of life's problems.

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u• 10 years ago

If Nintendo could price discriminate perfectly, they most certainly would, but there are negative externalities (i.e. bad PR).

I've wondered why retailers don't do the following: set MSRP to $X, but charge $X + $Y, but donate $Y to charity, and advertise the fact. This is basically a variation of bundling, except people aren't too happy about that, either. It's easy to be emotional about greedy scalpers or greedy retailers (that forces me to buy $Y of crap), but most people don't think of greed and, say children dying of cancer, in the same train of thought.

mrfusion7• 10 years ago

It seems silly to me to allocate a product by the vageries of refresh rates and server responsiveness.

It seems like Amazon could come up with many other ideas for allocating a limited product. There's no rule that says it has to be based on the millisecond ordered.

For example how about a game of chance (or skill?) to let people compete for the product? It would feel a lot more fulfilling than an error page. And it would give them good brand interaction.

d23• 10 years ago

Eh, or what about loyalty to amazon? If they had honestly messaged me and said that because of the age of my account and amount I had spent that I would get to be part of the first group in line to purchase, I might have even bought one just for that reason. Not that they needed more people buying them, but my loyalty to them would probably only go up.

ianai2• 10 years ago

On the flip side, stuff like this just sours the whole thing. Why have a sign up page to be alerted when something's available if you know it's going to be sold out immediately?

ianai2• 10 years ago

Was there even any sign that this was going to be under supplied like this? I didn't get that impression from the reviews/previews I read.

chuckreynolds• 10 years ago

idk what happened but at 1400PST on the money i loaded it... "add to cart" and "buy now" buttons were there but their function was inoperable. That page was broken for hours after that. And now it just says not available. ugh

Waterluvian• 10 years ago

Honestly, I was going to buy one. But the itch will probably pass by the time they're back in stock. Since I'm filling that itch with emulators now.

At an impulse buy price point, I wonder how many unrecoverable lost sales are caused by lack of supply.

ben174• 10 years ago

Agreed. All the sell-out did was frustrate me a bit then set me on a mission to create the ultimate all-in-one raspberry pi image.

efdee• 10 years ago

Mission accomplished? I would be interested ;-)

ashark2• 10 years ago

Put lakka on an SD card. Put your roms on one of those super-cheap 128gb USB sticks that exist these days. Use PS3 controllers. Done.

http://www.lakka.tv

(I know I've posted lakka twice in this thread, but I'm not affiliated, just a happy user)

swang• 10 years ago

i continuously got an empty shopping cart everytime i tried to add it.

i am pretty sure the site was hit so hard they just 404'd the URL so it wouldn't load anything. for a while the item page was blank while amazon.com continued to load.

yayitswei• 10 years ago

What's the (null) for in the headline?

Nintendowned: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in (null) seconds

everfree2• 10 years ago

If I had to guess it's probably a non-programmer trying to be clever, even though (null) doesn't make any sense in the context.

elcapitan2• 10 years ago

The little machine is nice, but I wish they simply had some kind of an app store for old game ROMs. I would pay the price of a mobile game for old Mario Bros etc. Instead I have to download them from shady sources.

ixixix• 10 years ago

Umm, ever heard of virtual console on the Wii and Wii U?

elcapitan2• 10 years ago

I don't need a Wii, I just want to play the old games (alongside with old Atari and Sega).

joshbaptiste• 10 years ago

Nintendo needs to come out with an official retro wifi appliance that allows one to buy classic games from an App Store and play 2 player games over the network.

thenormal• 10 years ago

Days spent in my childhood...

fuqted• 10 years ago

I had the chance to buy one yesterday morning and I didn't take it up. That was my first hearing about it and I gotta say, beyond resell value I don't see the appeal of this thing.

You can make a smaller NES with a Pi Zero and rented time on a 3D printer. I don't think people would have a problem trading use of cartridges for a much larger, cross platform selection.

Is this a business opportunity?

Jotra72• 10 years ago

Found the guy that has never tried emulation on a Pi.

nawtacawp• 10 years ago

Can you elaborate? Ive never used an emulator. I'm thinking NES games have a very low need for cpu / mem resources. Do they not run as good as the original?

cube00• 10 years ago

They may have all 'sold' but there are 4,000+ available on eBay at the moment.

strikeZ• 10 years ago

"Nintendowned: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in (null) seconds"

This is the headline I am seeing at the moment. Seems like the guy who was supposed to update the time forgot to do so.

michaelbuddy• 10 years ago

It'd be one thing if the product just came out, had a lot of media fanfare and sold out due to low volume. I mean that's reality right. But the fact that it appeared in weekly ads for stores all over the country. It's really expectation that hurts the most.

That's just causing hassle, distrust. Retail employees probably don't lke to get 50 extra calls a day for a product that will be in stock for 14 seconds. If I were a regional mgr I'd put VERY heavy pressure on corporate for say Target to NOT show ads for this product until reasonable levels of stock are guaranteed. Targets around the country got about 11 units. The one I went to only had 1 spare controller. Keep in mind that a good portion of the NES games are co-op.

There are 1800 target stores in the U.S. If they all got 11 units that means there were only 19,000 units for that store. I heard gamestops got about 5. Walmarts got about 6 units each.

So 6 units to walmarts 5229 stores is about 31375 unit. Gamestops 4,434 stores at 5 units each get 21700

Who knows what amazon stocked at. Would it be reasonable to say amazon got 10000 units? I mean they sold out in a minute. Maybe it was less than that.

So those totals add up to 82,075 units. Let's round up, not forgetting the Best Buys, Microcenters, mom-pop shops and The 800 Toys R Us stores in the U.S. and say the United States got maybe 112,000 units total for the release.

DarkMetatron• 10 years ago

It is such an overrated product, I have one, tried it and will send it back to amazon asap. It is Bad in so many levels, the short Controller cable is only one.

Graziano_M• 10 years ago

The short controller would suck, but it's kind of a requirements for compatibility with the wiimote. It 'speaks' i2c and at the data rates they require it's unlikely they could go much longer.

Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

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