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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

#91

Post by mikeash »

metaphor wrote: post #69
enneff wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). LOL at the privilege of this being a real problem for someone. If we were talking about price gouging on food, medicine, or housing then I might agree with you. But luxury gifts? Come on, man. > It's hurting the people who wanted to buy one for $60 but cannot afford to buy one for $600. LOL a…

> LOL at the idea that they can't just wait for them to manufacture more of them. I mean, the games have been out for nearly 30 years now, right? Assuming more are eventually manufactured, which many hope to be the case...in this instance. On a related personal note roughly 5 years ago, HP released a limited edition of their 15c RPN scientific calculator[1], which promptly sold out and found their way on eBay listing…

Why are you blaming scalpers for people's woes with the 15c, rather than blaming HP?

I see no problem with having different standards for necessities than for luxuries. We'd consider it morally reprehensible to deny food to a poor person, but few people have a problem denying yachts to a poor person.

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

#92

Post by caperstory »

serge2k wrote: post #83
darkstar999 wrote: post #23

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

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

Patience!!!!!!!!!

You are driving me insane! Go outside and play.

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

#93

Post by sogen »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #60
cpayne wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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…

Actually what really happens is that store managers have to decide what to stock in May, seven months before Xmas.

Source: I was manager at a large store.

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

#94

Post by kbenson »

metaphor wrote: post #69
enneff wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). LOL at the privilege of this being a real problem for someone. If we were talking about price gouging on food, medicine, or housing then I might agree with you. But luxury gifts? Come on, man. > It's hurting the people who wanted to buy one for $60 but cannot afford to buy one for $600. LOL a…

> LOL at the idea that they can't just wait for them to manufacture more of them. I mean, the games have been out for nearly 30 years now, right? Assuming more are eventually manufactured, which many hope to be the case...in this instance. On a related personal note roughly 5 years ago, HP released a limited edition of their 15c RPN scientific calculator[1], which promptly sold out and found their way on eBay listing…

It seems HP deserves a bit of the blame in this situation as well. Hp could conceivably make more, and at a higher price if needed to cover increased cost, or license production to some other company willing to do so. That they don't/won't speaks to them having a reason to do so. My money would be on not cannibalizing sales from their other calculators (which, let's be honest, are pretty damn expensive). I'm less likely to blame people for taking advantage of a reality than I am HP for making that reality. Let's not forget HP controls supply in this instance.

As for the NES system, what we have are people taking advantage of what is likely a short term supply problem. The cost of these systems is really a premium on people who are not willing to wait for more to come, since I think it's likely that Nintendo will make more.

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

#95

Post by wepple »

mrfusion wrote: post #68

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?

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.

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

#96

Post by Jach »

gohrt wrote: post #58
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #43

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 som…

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

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

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

#98

Post by GuiA »

mrfusion wrote: post #72
Donzo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in college, I resold high demand systems around the holidays. Some examples of this include the slim PS2, the Nintendo DS, and the XBox 360. I can tell you from this experience that people pay. The bids are not joke bids. They are people who are willing to pay market rate for high demand items because they want them now. God bless them. Furthermore, you can require payment before purchase.

How did you get these systems ?

I did this a couple times for limited edition systems. You just have to wait in line early and get as many as the store will let you.

It's not a tremendous amount of money but if you sell a few $300 systems for 2-3x the original price and you're a college student or such, it adds up fast.

The last time I tried doing it was for the limited edition pikachu 3DS; upon seeing a line of 50+ people in Oakland (most of which probably had the same intention as me), I decided that the gain was not worth it anymore.

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

#99

Post by savanaly »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #3

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...

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

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

#100

Post by Waterluvian »

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.

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