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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

#201

Post by nommm-nommm »

eridius wrote: post #22
childifchaos wrote: post #14

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 thing is a gimmick, just download the games you want to play on Wii's virtual console.

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

#202

Post by nommm-nommm »

eridius wrote: post #46
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very nearly the definition of luxury goods, given changes to elasticity with income, with it being explicitly so for veblen goods.

You can't just take any product, mark it up 10x, and call it a luxury good. People would laugh at you and buy the regular one. A luxury good has to have some reason to justify its luxury status. In this particular case, the $60 NES Classic is already a luxury good. Marking it up 10x doesn't make it more of a luxury good, it just either means people who actually want to use the damn thing can't afford to, or must pay…

Um isn't that exactly what designer purses and clothes are? A $300 pair of jeans doesn't cost 100x more to make than a $30 pair of jeans.

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

#203

Post by Shivetya »

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...

Isn't this similar to the BF and sales throughout the season with Amazon. Items come up for sale only to be gone instantly (or what appears as such)

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

#204

Post by Jommi »

ferdbold wrote: post #52
childifchaos wrote: post #14

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…

We're not talking about "smart and clever individuals" here. We're talking about scalper bots gaming the system by buying all of the product literally seconds after the seller flipped the switch. This isn't fair for the consumer at all as the product has literally been taken hostage by some third-party with unfair advantage. It's the 21st century equivalent to plundering trade routes. Also, I don't think the nature o…

There is no plundering happening here. Nobody is streaming anything, everyone has made their decision.

Nintendo for some reason sold a too low quantity, and now the price is high, as denoted by Basic Economics. Its not like this was free money for the scalpers, they took a risk and estimates the demand for the product.

Now people who want it the most, can get it. Those who dont want it that mucj, dont get it. Its absolutely logical, and in no way immoral.

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

#205

Post by Donzo »

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 ?

Good fortune.

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

#206

Post by johnward »

nicolewhite wrote: post #134
mangeletti wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was doing this (refreshing). I had the Amazon app open on my phone and the website on my MacBook. I added it to my cart from the app at approx 14:00:01 ET, and by the time I clicked the cart and then checkout I got an error message saying the item was sold out. I was so pissed that this happened, because I had been planning to follow this diligently since the day it was announced, and I had no less than 3 calendar…

My gf just got one at Best Buy. They seem to have plenty.

We had lines outside the local best buy in our small WV city.

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

#207

Post by IgorPartola »

pjlegato wrote: post #139
IgorPartola wrote: post #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…

The way it worked in the USSR was actually more like: you put your name on the list to buy a car. The local party boss' cousin wants a car, too, and he doesn't have to wait on the list, he gets the car that's being manufactured. And the factory director's brother wants a car, too. And his nephew. And the guy he is trading cars to for steel to make more cars. And that guy's cousin wants a car, too. All these people ge…

This is accurate.

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

#208

Post by jandrese »

GFischer wrote: post #50
tostitos1979 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha .. not unexplained. I am part of a few "deals" websites. People inexplicably want to collect all of them! They have predictions on what Amibos will sell out, so people can buy 'em sooner rather than later. Lots of crazy stuff. I thought it was to make a profit but it seems there are genuine collectors out there.

Digital age Beanie Babies? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

I've been calling them that for years.

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

#209

Post by matwood »

typicalrunt wrote: post #2

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…

> 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 happen.

Morally? It's a video game. Scalpers are fine. Blame Nintendo for not making more of them or charging a higher price so the limited supply met demand. Everyone will have their NES Classic in a month or two.

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

#210

Post by matwood »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #180
savanaly wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm truly sorry if my comment affected you negatively, it wasn't my intention. I used to be an econ tutor and sometimes my urge to just type my thoughts that way comes out and I regret that it sounds like lecturing. Anyways, why do you think that, given all that, scalping is a bad thing then? Isn't getting the goods to where they're valued most a good thing? Who's getting heartbroken here? The people who can't afford…

A problem I see is that the reseller is getting money for creating an artificial scarcity (buying off the stock of the original seller). It doesn't feel to me like an ethical behaviour. You portray it as making an unsolicited offering to the Gods of the Market on behalf of the original seller, but I don't think many people find a positive value in that. On the other hand, compare an example situations without scalpin…

To really create the scarcity the scalper must continue to buy all of the items that come out. That is not going to happen, because they never created the scarcity in the first place. Nintendo released too few items to start, and possibly charged too low of price.

The customer is also not forced to pay anything. There is typically a short timeframe where the items are out of stock.

I personally find tons of value in scalping. I've done it myself with tickets, and bought tickets in the same manner. It lets me trade time (waiting at a website or in line) for money.

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