The Final NES Classic Edition Shipments are Hitting North America This Month

[Lizzy Finnegan]

The Final NES Classic Edition Shipments are Hitting North America This Month

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The console's supply issues are about to get even worse - Nintendo has confirmed that the final NES Classic shipments for North America will be hitting this month.

The Reggie Fils-Aime saying [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/167933-Nintendo-Announces-NES-Classic-Edition-Launching-in-November] that the console was intended to be for adults "who grew up playing NES as a kid...but had stepped away from the gaming category." However, the console's unexpected popularity among "more active gamers" led to more demand than the company had prepared for.

Back in January, Fils-Aime stated that the supply issues for NES Classic had been "largely addressed," although that doesn't appear to be the case for much longer - the final shipments of the system will be hitting North America later this month.

Speaking with IGN [http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/04/13/nintendo-discontinues-the-nes-classic-edition], a Nintendo representative has confirmed that the final shipments of the NES Classic Edition will be reaching North America this month. IGN reports that the company has no plans to produce more systems, and that the representative told them that the "NES Classic Edition wasn't intended to be an ongoing, long-term product. However, due to high demand, we did add extra shipments to our original plans."

As IGN points out, this doesn't necessarily mean the NES Classic/Famicon Mini has been discontinued worldwide - at this time, Nintendo has nothing to announce regarding that.



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[Veldel]

However, the console's unexpected popularity among "more active gamers" led to more demand than the company had prepared for.

IGN reports that the company has no plans to produce more systems, and that the representative told them that the "NES Classic Edition wasn't intended to be an ongoing, long-term product.

That makes sense... What are you doing, Nintendo?

I have no interest in this, but why stop if it's selling?

isn't it obvious? Nintendo hates money

 

[Corey Halfhill]

So, after failing to ship enough units to satisfy the massive demand for its new product, the company responds by discontinuing said product. Why? Because it wasn't part of their plan for the NES mini to be successful. WTF?! What kind of business are you guys running over there?

 

[Quellist]

Seems like Nintendo firmly supports resellers rather than gamers

 

[Kcirrot]

Nintendo is mind-boggling. I just wonder at the decision making skills of whoever gave the order for this. Let's assume that the profit margins on this are tiny or that they intend to include all these games (for $5-10) on the Switch virtual console. Do they not understand how much ill will they are creating with "more active gamers?"

 

[Covarr]

Does this mean we'll be getting Switch VC soon? That's the only way I can fathom this decision making any sense.

P.S. Thanks

 

[LTD]

They're just clearing the deck for the 2017 Christmas shopping season ("Now with 35 games!!!). Gotta gin up that artificial scarcity.

 

[animeprime]

I kind of understand what Nintendo was thinking. A significant part of this is the warehousing, shipping and logistics of a physical product. If you sell out you're still guaranteed a profit, if it doesn't sell out then you have a backlog to store (which costs a good bit of money) and eventually the stores will send the unsold units back to you (which you have to refund). This will eat up your profits compared to not being greedy. For a "Fun and Nostalgic" toy instead of a core product like a game or console it isn't really worth the risk. They also can't just start up manufacturing again once they see how incredibly popular it was. Factories have tight schedules to get a specific item produced before they switch and retool to making a new item, and swapping back is a pretty big deal. It sounds like they tried extend the schedule or did extra shifts to get as many out as they could.

I'd expect that if they do another run in the future or do a mini SNES they'll up the inventory now that they see there is a demand.

 

[laggyteabag]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I guess Nintendo just couldn't handle shipping more than like, 3 units at a time.

 

[MonsterCrit]

However, the console's unexpected popularity among "more active gamers" led to more demand than the company had prepared for.

IGN reports that the company has no plans to produce more systems, and that the representative told them that the "NES Classic Edition wasn't intended to be an ongoing, long-term product.

That makes sense... What are you doing, Nintendo?

I have no interest in this, but why stop if it's selling?

Artificial scarcity drives up demand. The demand drives up the price and rep. I'm willing to bet more than a few execs at nintendo have squirled away a few cases for ebay sales.

 

[RaikuFA]

Thanks Nintendo, you just encouraged a bunch of people to go build a raspberry pi instead.

Adding this with the fact that there's two versions of those three amiibos and they're retailor exclusive I'd like think Nintendo gets a hard on with shitting the bed.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

For people who are questioning why Nintendo is stopping this. You ever heard what the Triple Limiteds are? Limited Supply, Limited Edition, and Limited Time. Nintendo made this clear that the NES Classic was Limited Time (Christmas period), Limited Supply (200,000 units), and Limited Edition (special NES mini-console).

Or are you folks purposefully attacking Nintendo for this when the entire business world partakes in the Triple Limiteds?

Also absolutely fucking disgusting people are supporting piracy by saying Nintendo is in the wrong. Fucking garbage.

 

[Zontar]

For people who are questioning why Nintendo is stopping this. You ever heard what the Triple Limiteds are? Limited Supply, Limited Edition, and Limited Time. Nintendo made this clear that the NES Classic was Limited Time (Christmas period), Limited Supply (200,000 units), and Limited Edition (special NES mini-console).

Or are you folks purposefully attacking Nintendo for this when the entire business world partakes in the Triple Limiteds?

Also absolutely fucking disgusting people are supporting piracy by saying Nintendo is in the wrong. Fucking garbage.

As a guy who spends way too much money on Limited Edition anime crap, here's the problem with this: the Triple Limiteds are for niche products that are aimed at a small market willing to pay far more money for something then it's actually worth. Spending 500$ on 7 volumes of a series to get 13 episodes out of it all in a fancy box, that's the Triple Limiteds, where 5,000 sales is brake even that half don't reach and 20,000 puts you in the top 5 to ever sell.

A few months with a 6 figure unit count for a mini-rerelease of a retro system during a retro craze, with the price tag they where asking for? I'm sorry but if that's Triple Limited then multiple people who where critical to the decision making process where not informed at any point about it before signing off and things getting too far to go back on. Nintendo is rightfully being perceived as hating money because they've once again massively underestimated demand for one of their products (since they don't understand the American market at all) and instead of making up for this in the logical way of increasing supply since the price and other factors made demand too high to meet, instead they're pissing away money because of a notion they couldn't even get right in the first place.

And I do have a serious question to ask: given how it will now again be impossible to play NES games at a reasonable price due to the retro craze having inflated the cost of classic systems to ludicrous prices, and the fact the only legal outlet to do so other then that is soon to be off the market, how else but piracy are people supposed to play these games given the eShop doesn't have anything close to all the titles people want to play or a UI people want to use?

 

[RaikuFA]

For people who are questioning why Nintendo is stopping this. You ever heard what the Triple Limiteds are? Limited Supply, Limited Edition, and Limited Time. Nintendo made this clear that the NES Classic was Limited Time (Christmas period), Limited Supply (200,000 units), and Limited Edition (special NES mini-console).

Or are you folks purposefully attacking Nintendo for this when the entire business world partakes in the Triple Limiteds?

Also absolutely fucking disgusting people are supporting piracy by saying Nintendo is in the wrong. Fucking garbage.

You do know Nintendo pulls this bullshit all the time? Look at amiibos. Look at the Wii's launch where a mother died trying to get one. Even their new console has this issue. Even certain games are victim to this. Mario 2 and Zelda 2 were scarce when they were first released. Earthbound was too, and then they had the gall to use it's low sales as an excuse to not localize it's sequel. I never once saw them go "it's only for the holiday season" cause if they did then they still fucked up by making such a tiny amount. Cause all we end up with being pissed at Nintendo. Only victor is scalpers.

 

[BrawlMan]

However, the console's unexpected popularity among "more active gamers" led to more demand than the company had prepared for.

IGN reports that the company has no plans to produce more systems, and that the representative told them that the "NES Classic Edition wasn't intended to be an ongoing, long-term product.

That makes sense... What are you doing, Nintendo?

I have no interest in this, but why stop if it's selling?

isn't it obvious? Nintendo hates money

But why? Didn't the DS and Wii print money? Ok, that was wasn't the case any more by 2011 for the Wii at least. I am not one for doom and gloom, but Big N, get your act together. You're almost about to turn in to Sega.

 

[RaikuFA]

And now the Fanicom classic is being discontinued. Though I don't think it had the shortage issue the NES classic did.

 

[Saltyk]

However, the console's unexpected popularity among "more active gamers" led to more demand than the company had prepared for.

IGN reports that the company has no plans to produce more systems, and that the representative told them that the "NES Classic Edition wasn't intended to be an ongoing, long-term product.

That makes sense... What are you doing, Nintendo?

I have no interest in this, but why stop if it's selling?

isn't it obvious? Nintendo hates money

But why? Didn't the DS and Wii print money? Ok, that was wasn't the case any more by 2011 for the Wii at least. I am not one for doom and gloom, but Big N, get your act together. You're almost about to turn in to Sega.

And that has been my concern from Day 1 with the Switch. Even before it was named, I was drawing parallels between this and Sega.

More than a few of us fondly remember the Genesis. It was a great system. And some even bring up the Dreamcast. But we often forget the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn. All systems that came out in a relatively short timespan ('92, '94 and '95)

Sega wanted an intermediate system after the Genesis, but ended up making 3 and not really focusing on any of them. As a result, all three systems failed pretty miserably.

I do worry that Nintendo is making the same mistake with the Switch.

 

[BrawlMan]

And that has been my concern from Day 1 with the Switch. Even before it was named, I was drawing parallels between this and Sega.

More than a few of us fondly remember the Genesis. It was a great system. And some even bring up the Dreamcast. But we often forget the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn. All systems that came out in a relatively short timespan ('92, '94 and '95)

Sega wanted an intermediate system after the Genesis, but ended up making 3 and not really focusing on any of them. As a result, all three systems failed pretty miserably.

I do worry that Nintendo is making the same mistake with the Switch.

What's funny is back in 2012/2013 (with the Wii u just being out) when critics and analysts were making comparison Sega and Nintendo, the super blind fanboys were making a big fuss out of it, whining "It's not gonna happen to Nintendo" or "There nowhere near as dumb as Sega". I wonder heat they have to say now is each passing day, it's almost becoming true. The Wii U was Nintendo's equivalent of the Sega Saturn. It's not the failure the Virtual Boy was, but that is not much of accomplishment; especially by Nintendo's standards. Say what you will about the Sega Dreamcast, but it had a great library of games.

The Saturn had games, but most were 2D (meaning most of them aged very well), and a lot you had to import. Why? Because the marketing guy for the USA at least, had stupid policy of not bringing any 2D games to the state side; everything had to be 3D. The huge flaw of the Saturn was that it could not render most 3D games well. The worst part, that guy used work at Sony and was going to do the same thing for the PS1, but the Japanese division caught wind of his plan and fired him. And for some dumb reason, Sega of American & Japan hired. Marketing and price ($499.99 at launch) was the main factor. If the system had proper marketing guy that did not have his head up his own ass, then the Saturn might have done better in the West. You know the old saying, history repeats itself.

 

[FalloutJack]

*Waits for Nintendo's stock to go down so low that it can be bought for pocket change*