At approximately 10pm, Harvey Norman quietly opened pre-orders for the highly-sought after Nintendo Classic Mini SNES. If you didn’t hear about the sale, you’re not alone – no announcements were made on social media and no press release was issued to media. We only just found out about the sale via a report on Vooks. By then, stock had already sold out.
To be honest, we’re not sure how we’re supposed to feel right now. On the one hand, Harvey Norman nobly refrained from whipping up hype for what was surely a small number of units. This would have resulted in thousands of disappointed customers, just like every other Nintendo mini console sale ever.
On the other hand, most of us were denied the chance, however small it may have been, to actually nab the console. We’re trying to decide which is worse – attempting to buy a Mini SNES and failing, or not being informed about the sale in the first place. At least there were no website crashes this way, we guess.
With EB Games, JB Hi-Fi, The Gamesmen and even Catch jumping the gun via pre-sales, most stock allotted for Australia has surely been exhausted at this point.
As we have warned from the start, attempting to buy a Mini SNES on launch day is going to be hell. Hopefully, the usual retailers will pull some extra units out of their collective sleeves and we’ll be treated to another flash sale or two. And hopefully they’ll actually let us know about it this time. The resulting online scrum is going to suck, but at least we’ll have a fighting chance.
[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/06/nintendo-snes-classic-australian-pricing-games-and-where-to-buy/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/06/SNES-Games2.jpg” title=”Nintendo SNES Classic: Australian Pricing, Availability And Where To Buy” excerpt=”It’s official. after the runaway success of the Nintendo Classic Mini NES, Nintendo is releasing a retro remake of the Super Nintendo video game console. Boasting 21 of the best games from the 16-bit era, two SNES controllers and a nostalgic SNES design, the Super Nintendo Classic Edition is going to be one of the hottest items this Christmas. Here’s everything you need to know – including links to pre-order right now!”]
[Via Vooks]
Comments
20 responses to “Harvey Norman Threw A Mini SNES Sale And Forgot To Tell Anyone”
Harvey Norman and Nintendo should join forces as some sort titan of shittiness.
I wonder if Nintendo might perhaps sell more units if they made enough units to sell one to everyone who wants one.
Given they think that Switch owners are more likely to have an android- or iOS-compatible smartphone than a Switch I don’t think they quite understand how to maximise market reach.
They can’t magically make more units. They can’t kick Samsung, Sony, HTC, Asus etc out of the factories so they can use them. They only have capacity to make so many units of both these and the Switch and they are likely going as fast as they can.
Why do so many people seem to assume they can snap their fingers and magic more units into existence?
I said similar for the NES Classic. Production runs are scheduled quite a few months prior to happening, and finding a window to make more isn’t something a phone call will sort out.
And this sort of thing isn’t something they would be shopping around to get made either, it just doesn’t work that way. This time around, they are making more units, but its still the same issue.
They have a certain window to make them before the factory retools and moves on to the next product. Which also would have been planned months in advance.
You know, I’ll be 100% honest and admit this has never crossed my mind. So, genuinely, thanks for enlightening me.
This. Further, THESE ARE JUST THE PRE-ORDERS! It hasn’t even been released yet, and isn’t til the end of next month. Nintendo have already promised significantly more stock than the NES mini, which was far more popular than ANYONE would’ve expected.
Um. You understand they’ve been making consoles for like, 30 years right?
This is clearly a choice by them to massively drive demand by keeping supply really low.
On the other hand, artificial scarcity is a well known strategy to induce panic buying in customers, for higher prices than an item is typically worth.
At worst, Nintendo deliberately use artificial scarcity to generate hype and get media coverage of lines out the door and waiting lists an arm long. At best, Nintendo suck at estimating demand, which for a company with as lengthy a heritage as them is straight up bad planning.
Nintendo ends up with egg on their face regardless of which it is. Neither case is good.
Yeah, basically this. A little annoyed a few people immediately assumed I have no idea how production works.
Nintendo could have easily afforded to come closer to meeting demand but chose not to either as a business strategy or because of incompetence – that these units (and the NES classic) would sell well was not exactly difficult to predict. It’s normal for electronics companies to not meet early demand for various reasons, but they generally get closer than Nintendo has been lately.
It could be that they’re creating scarcity intentionally to drive more sales, but that still seems like a strange move when demand is so high regardless.
Glad I double dipped at jb
Surely everyone knew what the situation would be like based on the last one. If you checked this site that day, you would have seen the articles and should have immediately jumped onto EB and ordered one, or hit your local store.
If Harvey Norman have already sold out, it seems fair to say that they didn’t NEED to tell anyone. What good would have come of it? They’d just run the risk of bringing their website to its knees in order to sell exactly 0 more units than they sold anyway.
My thoughts exactly. Advertising is expensive. If your stock is going to sell out in minutes anyway… Why bother advertising you have them.
20+1 Games? What?
The +1 refers to Starfox 2, that was previously unreleased on the SNES and unlocks after playing through the first level of the original Starfox.
Good to see people still defending Nintendo’s terrible business practices in the comments. mini NES sells out instantly, “oh they can’t make it fast enough it’s not their fault!”. Nintendo STOPS MAKING mini NES despite the massive demand, in favour of mini SNES. Of course pre-orders sell out. “oh they can’t make it fast enough it’s not their fault!”. Come on. It’s absolute madness and defending Nintendo for this bizarro-world business is just incomprehensible.
They probably only had a limited number of units allotted and didn’t want to get in strife for bait advertising. Seems like Kotaku will turn anything into a “controversy” for the clicks. If they had advertised them and sold out in minutes due to demand there would be an article negative article about it here just as fast.
The behaviour of news sites is contributing to Nintendo’s behaviour. Since the 80s, Nintendo has deliberately constrained supply in order to maintain hype and the perception of value. People writing articles every time some retailer has sold out of a Nintendo product just encourages Nintendo to keep doing it – free advertising. And as some smart people at Gamestop have already realised, the NES and SNES Classics are no more than gimmicks to increase consumer awareness of Nintendo and its Switch. Looks like it’s working 🙂
I don’t understand Nintendos thinking with these things. people want them. so make them. but they barely make any and just end up making more of their fans annoyed and angry about something that should be a cool celebration of retro gaming.