Obi-Wanma

Targets here open at 8AM too, and I just had to be there by 7 to get my NES classic. Easy peasy.

Red Hood

I really wonder what's the purpose of Nintendo doing this. It's pissing it's customers, creating bad publicity from them online and in printed media and losing the goodwill of faithful customers. There's no reason for them to be doing this in this day and age.

DVDTalker76

Unfortunately, time after time we see they do not suffer for these tactics. The majority of consumers really are God damn sheep.

mattysemo247

Well, thankfully the gimmick is almost over. Yeah, we'll probably see the same thing with the N-64 classic next year, but honestly those games don't hold up very well. And I'm sure they will bump the price on that one to $99. So I don't mind skipping on that one. Most of the N-64 games I wanted came on that Rare Collection. And I don't see them doing a Gamecube classic, but I guess we'll see over the next couple years.

Music

Nintendo is the dog.

LorenzoL

After last year debacle of the NES Classic and I'm not even talking about the short supply, I'm talking about the secretiveness about the supply, how it wasn't going to be discontinued stated by the President of Nintendo NA, that there are still supplies and a week later, they discontinued the system.

Not going to bother this time. Me, not buying Nintendo products won't hurt them one bit, but I'm just tired of their BS about limiting these products because of the possibility that they will lose sales once these games are released digitally.

DVD Josh

Like I said before, these things are just plastic and flash memory. There can be as many of them as Nintendo wants. They probably cost $1 to make, they are literally giving up millions.

Noonan

We'll probably never know their motivation to leave all that $ on the table; both with this and the NES Classic. There has to be a reason, right? Go through the R&D, make the tooling machines, buy raw materials...then drastically limit the amount you make? They're pulling out the Wookie defense...

DVD Josh

I almost wonder if at some point, Nintendo's end game is to make some sort of three in one multisystem and sell that for $200.

Noonan

Still doesn't explain these two. They don't need market data to know that any official retro Nintendo system will sell like candy. The Classic systems don't require product development; they could have started with a 3/1 and had it outselling all modern consoles.

fujishig

Again, though this is a novelty item. How many people are really still playing their NES classics? By keeping them in short supply, they keep them (and future iterations) in demand, instead of languishing on the shelves as budget fodder like the vast majority of similar (though inferior) devices. And when they re-release them there will still be demand.

I'm not saying it's a great strategy, but look at it this way: amiibos are still sellers, long after the shine wore off of Skylanders, Infinity, and Lego Dimensions. They are inferior as game accessories in almost every way, yet the limited supply helped them a lot.

slop101

Yeah, a console that played, say, 50 NES games and 50 SNES games would've been so easy for them to do, and would've sold billions. But Nintendo doesn't give a fuck. They don't operate like the typical company that wants to make money.

fumanstan

Selling a massive 2 in 1 or 3 in 1 retro console seems like it would make less sense for Nintendo to do as far as appealing to nostalgia, the marketing, and even support of the devices, I can see why they didn't go that route.

I'm still buying Nintendo products, so I guess i'm a sheep. Baaaa

Mike86

Honestly my guess is partly that they didn't expect the NES Classic to be such a smash hit like it was. They probably thought it would just sell enough over the holiday season last year to turn a profit while they didn't have anything else new on the market but obviously didn't intend it to be a mass produced item that was going to be around forever. I mean really from their perspective they probably are thinking that fans have at least one of their consoles or handhelds and can buy those games for the most part on Virtual Console. The Classic editions are aimed more at casuals who maybe don't own a current Nintendo product. Unfortunately they didn't account for collectors who want the NES/SNES Classics just for collectibility and didn't relay the fact that the NES Classic was limited.

Music

You're so woolly!

Decker

^ That still doesn't at all explain why
1) They didn't make more after the Holiday rush once they knew it was popular.
2) They didn't significantly ramp up their production this year - surely they must have know that the SNES system would be even more popular.

Again, I can live without it. But it was a weird consumer product that, to folks on the outside looking in, sure appears to be manufactured, intentional scarcity.

Adam Tyner

My theory used to be that the NES Classic served two purposes: (1) filling in a holiday gap, between the Switch being pushed back and a limited slate of software, and (2) the NES Classic being kind of a branding exercise leading up to the Switch's release. I'm sure they knew it would sell out based on the volume they were producing. I don't think Nintendo anticipated the level of interest there'd actually be, perhaps still stinging from overproducing the 3DS and Wii U that they couldn't sell at launch. If they kept production of the NES Classic going, maybe they were concerned about that drawing attention away from the Switch's launch.

I think that all sounds reasonable. Of course, most of the "but"s and "because"s don't apply to the SNES Classic, so I guess I've been giving them too much credit.

Mike86

Well they did say it was limited. Again I don't think that was made clear by Nintendo up front but maybe they didn't have the manufacturing space to dedicate to making more. Especially with the Switch launching and the continued support of 3DS plus the new 2DS XL.

Well as far as that goes it's still up in the air. The first day pre-orders went up it was bound to be a shit show. With how the Internet is it makes it hard to obtain things like this. Add on scalpers and whatnot and it makes it even worse. Nintendo did say they planned to stagger releases throughout the remainder of the year until the holidays.

They probably figured that it would appeal to a niche market and didn't expect it to be as in demand as it wound up being.

fujishig

They're going to overproduce the N64 classic, which is not as fondly remembered as the NES/SNES, and then shutter the division when things don't sell.

fumanstan

The excuses that Nintendo has had for the NES classic would bother me less if they were more honest and upfront about the intentions. Saying that they were producing more, retailers would have more stock coming, and ignoring questions about it being limited and production suddenly ending is just bullshit.

I'm not as angry about the SNES classic, there were actually preorders this time around (sort of) and stock at least seems higher then it was before, but we'll see how stock of the item goes over the next couple months through the holidays. It might be shit again.

DVD Josh

I still play mine. I hacked it and loaded it with all the games I couldn't beat as a kid. The save system is great for keeping progress and trying again. Plus, it's great to break out when friends come over for some nostalgia for an hour.

Draven

Then they don't know their brand at all. A mini NES or SNES when kids who grew up with them are now adults, right at Christmas? Ridiculous to not expect crazy demand.

DVD Josh

Target has confirmed their allocation for preorder is gone. In-store only. Gamestop is the same other than the TG bundles (if there even are any more).

Potential for Amazon to have more preorders. BB is unknown.

slop101

I did the thing amazon provides - their "notify me when this becomes available", and I haven't gotten shit!

mattysemo247

Don't worry, Target has you covered with other suggested purchases.