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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

#241

Post by ashark »

everfree wrote: post #222
nawtacawp wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? Ive never used an emulator. I'm thinking NES games have a very low need for cpu / mem resources. Do they not run as good as the original?

I've tried an emulation box with RetroPie and the controller drivers are hard to find (at least for xbox 360 wired controller), the controls are difficult to set up (requiring manual edits to config files, which you need to plug a keyboard into your rpi to do), the controls are glitchy after you set them up, and the interface is not intuitive at all. If someone has a better idea for pi emulation I would really like t…

Use Lakka, not RetroPie. Use a PS3 controller—360 would work, but its dpad is terrible, and both work with no extra effort. PS3 even works over bluetooth with little to no fiddling. Only trick is you have to find the "right" roms (those blessed by various projects that record hashes of accurate rom dumps) or Lakka/Retroarch's auto-rom-scanning won't work, though you can still select roms manually. Small price to pay for the level of "just works" that Lakka provides.

[EDIT] links:

http://www.lakka.tv

Which romsets to use for various systems:

http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6661

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

#242

Post by 551199 »

minimaxir wrote: post #5
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...

Nintendo has had a history of unexplainable supply shortages for in-demand items. (case in point: Amiibo)

They probably use scarcity to hype the product.

See Cialdini's Influence.

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

#243

Post by ashark »

ben174 wrote: post #140
Waterluvian wrote: post #100

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.

Agreed. All the sell-out did was frustrate me a bit then set me on a mission to create the ultimate all-in-one raspberry pi image.

Put lakka on an SD card. Put your roms on one of those super-cheap 128gb USB sticks that exist these days. Use PS3 controllers. Done.

http://www.lakka.tv

(I know I've posted lakka twice in this thread, but I'm not affiliated, just a happy user)

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

#244

Post by maccard »

mikiem wrote: post #189
maccard wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question exactly. Will need to ensure I don't ever use OPs service

People call on the telephone and discuss their plans, requirements, and business models before signing up. Often, once they are customers they may discuss with us ways to optimize. We check in from time to time and often they call us about their upcoming efforts to see if we have input. Of course there are some that we don't hear from at all, but whose web site at their email domains clearly spell out their businesse…

And you talk about what they're doing on a public forum?

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

#245

Post by snewk »

maccard wrote: post #244
mikiem wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People call on the telephone and discuss their plans, requirements, and business models before signing up. Often, once they are customers they may discuss with us ways to optimize. We check in from time to time and often they call us about their upcoming efforts to see if we have input. Of course there are some that we don't hear from at all, but whose web site at their email domains clearly spell out their businesse…

And you talk about what they're doing on a public forum?

do you think his equates to doxxing someone?

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

#246

Post by Chinjut »

savanaly wrote: post #123
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…

I feel like if you truly groked capitalism, you would be able to point out lots of its flaws, but also to realize that scalping is definitely not one of them. With supply limited like this, the optimal social outcome is for the X units produced to go to the X people in the world who would value them most, in other words the people who would be willing to pay the most (only exception I can think of to this is if someo…

The person willing to pay the most may not be the person who most desires it, considering the differing marginal utility of money across the vast spectrum of income/wealth inequality. Trump can buy on a lark what I would only shell out for as a matter of deepest, life-or-death desire.

(See also: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/10/do-economists-actuall..., http://www.demos.org/blog/12/23/14/when-inequality-ruins-ana..., http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5822.html, and http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5117.html for more on this same point)

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

#247

Post by readme »

jakobegger wrote: post #127
mikiem wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm that this is a thing... a bigger thing than one might think. I run an IaaS cloud provider and I know off the top of my head several customers of ours who each maintain a fleet of VMs to do this for a variety of products. Eg: Limited edition shoes, show tickets, etc. Some of our customers who do this keep the VMs running and some fire them up only when needed. Some use custom software and scripts and som…

How do you know that people are doing this with your VMs?

Regardless of how he knows, you can also google "sneaker bot" and you'll find a vast underground that deals in this trade of scalping limited edition sneakers.

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

#248

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

mikiem wrote: post #119
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...

I can confirm that this is a thing... a bigger thing than one might think. I run an IaaS cloud provider and I know off the top of my head several customers of ours who each maintain a fleet of VMs to do this for a variety of products. Eg: Limited edition shoes, show tickets, etc. Some of our customers who do this keep the VMs running and some fire them up only when needed. Some use custom software and scripts and som…

Would including a CAPTCHA for items expected to sell out quickly prevent this?

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

#249

Post by lithos »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #143
jakobegger wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that people are doing this with your VMs?

I'm surprised the customers would openly discuss it, even to their provider. The less people that know about it and do it the better I would think.

Large operations always tend to communicate with their service providers at some level.

Likewise I imagine these types of companies tend to generate some level of complaint from sellers to the provider. They are really aggressive bots that can create attack level traffic spikes, and break a sellers TOS (snicker) in some cases.

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