Nintendo Classic Mini: NES | Mini Nes pre loaded with 30 Games & HDMI

Octoroc wrote:
Slayerx wrote:Still struggling to find one at retail price.

CEX and selling they for £120!

Are you desperate to get one before Christmas? I'm just going to wait a bit.

Nintendo have spectacularly failed to meet demand for the Classic Mini, something of a missed opportunity perhaps. A lady in a shop gave me some spiel about an earthquake at the production plant.

Not really but family were asking what I want and I asked for this.

I'll just have to ask for something else and keep an eye out for one.

Octoroc wrote:
Slayerx wrote:Still struggling to find one at retail price.

CEX and selling they for £120!

Are you desperate to get one before Christmas? I'm just going to wait a bit.

Nintendo have spectacularly failed to meet demand for the Classic Mini, something of a missed opportunity perhaps. A lady in a shop gave me some spiel about an earthquake at the production plant.

Artificial scarcity = hype and guaranteed sales down the line regardless of the customer/retailer experience. The same with Amiibos, toys etc.

I recall reading a couple of years back that, as part of Nintendo's new approach and desire to cut back on expenditure during the leaner 3DS and Wii U years, they deliberately seek to only manufacture items in a number that they can immediately sell without having a need for stock storage. This is why the launch of the amiibo range and the Classic Mini had such low volume available; if the demand is there then Nintendo will later make more.

It's a pain for consumers when something is popular but, from a business point of view, it makes sense. As long as people do then buy the items once they're re-available, of course!

Note: I'm not "defending" Nintendo on this; just describing how they do things.

EDIT: Just to show that I'm not making things up, Iwata-san mentioned this during a Q&A session at Nintendo's "72nd AGM" in 2012:

Iwata wrote:..In fact, one of the challenges in the video game distribution industry in Japan is the higher inventory risk; it is a bigger challenge than ever before. Since it is common practice in this industry that retailers take the inventory risk, their profits from good sales can be easily wiped out by surplus stock. Therefore, when the sales pace of a game with a short lifespan is slower than expected, it is reasonable for retailers to reduce their prices. Previously, a retailer’s price cut was rather independent from others, but nowadays the information on a price markdown at one store is likely to affect other retailers in no time through the Internet, which results in a collapse of the market price. Consumers tend to see such a product as one with a bad reputation...

Nevertheless they do seem to have massively underestimated demand for the Mini. Either by design, lack of design or something preventing them from manufacturing enough units, like that earthquake I heard about from a lady in a shop.

jawafour wrote:I recall reading a couple of years back that, as part of Nintendo's new approach and desire to cut back on expenditure during the leaner 3DS and Wii U years, they deliberately seek to only manufacture items in a number that they can immediately sell without having a need for stock storage. This is why the launch of the amiibo range and the Classic Mini had such low volume available; if the demand is there then Nintendo will later make more.

It's a pain for consumers when something is popular but, from a business point of view, it makes sense. As long as people do then buy the items once they're re-available, of course!

Note: I'm not "defending" Nintendo on this; just describing how they do things.

EDIT: Just to show that I'm not making things up, Iwata-san mentioned this during a Q&A session at Nintendo's "72nd AGM" in 2012:

Iwata wrote:..In fact, one of the challenges in the video game distribution industry in Japan is the higher inventory risk; it is a bigger challenge than ever before. Since it is common practice in this industry that retailers take the inventory risk, their profits from good sales can be easily wiped out by surplus stock. Therefore, when the sales pace of a game with a short lifespan is slower than expected, it is reasonable for retailers to reduce their prices. Previously, a retailer’s price cut was rather independent from others, but nowadays the information on a price markdown at one store is likely to affect other retailers in no time through the Internet, which results in a collapse of the market price. Consumers tend to see such a product as one with a bad reputation...

The problem with this take on things is that it only really works if they can respond to demand quickly enough.

I think looking back on Amiibo shortages and current NES Classic situation, Nintendo have real problems with this strategy.

Looking at Amiibo now it appears that Nintendo took too long to react to demand and it now seems that after demand has died down there are now too many in stock. The whole strategy is ultimately self defeating if it means that stock isn't available when people want to buy it.

There might be a big stock shipment of the Classic Mini before Christmas which would prove me wrong, but if there isn't then it can hardly be considered anything other than a complete own goal for Nintendo.

HSH28 wrote:The problem with this take on things is that it only really works if they can respond to demand quickly enough.

I think looking back on Amiibo shortages and current NES Classic situation, Nintendo have real problems with this strategy...

I agree, HSH, although it is difficult to say that Nintendo has made a mistake as such. The scarcity of amiibo drove a fervour amongst consumers; personally I got caught up in the hype of the early releases before the large replacement shipments appeared! The mini NES has became a "must-have" item and that has whipped up coverage in the media. If folk were to see one now they'd snap them up... even though larger new shipments are expected to arrive.

Again, I'm not defending the practise, but it can't really be considered a failure. Sure, Jim Sterling blows his top but, from a business viewpoint, a company will always want people to view a product as "quite hard to get; buy it if you see it" rather than easily available and waiting for a price drop.

I think the popularity of this has pretty much guaranteed a NES Classic Mini II or a SNES Classic Mini, personally Id rather see the latter.

Imagine how much the inevitable Gameboy Classic Mini is going to sell...

Rax wrote:I think the popularity of this has pretty much guaranteed a NES Classic Mini II or a SNES Classic Mini, personally Id rather see the latter.

I am not very interested in buying a NES Classic Mini, but would strawberry floating love a SNES Classic Mini (although would depend on the games I guess!).

So are Nintendo going to actually bother restocking this after clearly under shipping it or is that them done?

Die Hard is Shite wrote:So are Nintendo going to actually bother restocking this after clearly under shipping it or is that them done?

Of course they'll restock it - they just seriously underestimated the demand...This is an easy money-maker for them.

Give it a few months and it will be in stock everywhere.

I sold mine to make a quick buck whilst the prices were crazy. I'll re-buy it in a couple of month's time when there's more stock.

Just a quick heads up to those who still want a NES Mini, but don't want to pay crazy eBay prices.

They're back up for pre-order on the official UK Nintendo store :-)

There have been random re-stocks in some shops over the past week, but most sell out within minutes due to bulk buyers snapping them up for eBay.

The official Nintendo store limits 1 per customer.

https://store.nintendo.co.uk/nintendo-c ... XO0ZfzM.97 Just preordered one. Amazon had stock of more on Monday evening but they went quickly. Checked the next day and there's suddenly a bunch of new third party sellers with no selling history selling them for £100+. Scalper banana splits.

If I didn't have my Switch coming next week I'd probably pre-order one as well. As it is I'm happy to wait another month or two. Then once I get it I'll hack the gooseberry fool out of it and fill it with as many NES roms as I can get away with. :nod:

Cheeky Devlin wrote:If I didn't have my Switch coming next week I'd probably pre-order one as well. As it is I'm happy to wait another month or two. Then once I get it I'll hack the gooseberry fool out of it and fill it with as many NES roms as I can get away with.

Just seen that it's been hacked to do SNES, GB, GBA and Mega Drive games now to :datass:

So glad I got one of those SNES classic controllers from Club Nintendo a few years back.

Mafro wrote:
Cheeky Devlin wrote:If I didn't have my Switch coming next week I'd probably pre-order one as well. As it is I'm happy to wait another month or two. Then once I get it I'll hack the gooseberry fool out of it and fill it with as many NES roms as I can get away with.

Just seen that it's been hacked to do SNES, GB, GBA and Mega Drive games now to So glad I got one of those SNES classic controllers from Club Nintendo a few years back.

Nice. I've not got the SNES controller, so I'd just stick to systems that only need the two buttons.

You could always just use a normal Wii classic controller.

Wow they're out of stock already :lol:

Ugghh christ alive Nintendo just let me buy the damn thing

It may as well not even have been released yet for all the chance I've had of getting one

OrangeRakoon wrote:Ugghh christ alive Nintendo just let me buy the damn thing

It may as well not even have been released yet for all the chance I've had of getting one

Make up and account at http://www.stockinformer.co.uk and they'll email you when they're in stock somewhere. I wouldn't have known about it otherwise.

Don't believe it, went on, said Pre-Order now, clicked log-in, website crashed now all sold out again! :evil:

Nintendo Classic Mini: NES | Mini Nes pre loaded with 30 Games & HDMI

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