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

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

#21

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...

$610 was the selling price.

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

#22

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 happ…

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 opportu…

> 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.

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

#24

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 happ…

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 opportu…

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.

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

#25
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.

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

#26

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...

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...

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

#27

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 happ…

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

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

#28

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 happ…

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).

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

#29
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opportu…

> 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.

If you're being "forced" to pay $600 for a $60 item because you must buy one right now, perhaps you need to stop and question the nature of your relationship with that person.

If you are so bothered by having to wait for them to come back onto the market at $60 that it hurts you (as opposed to, say, just being a minor annoyance), perhaps you need to stop and question the nature of your relationship with yourself.

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

#30
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opportu…

> 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.

This argument is ridiculous. Otherwise there would be no such thing as luxury goods.
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