
Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute - smaili
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/11/nintendowned-amazon-sells-out-of-nes-classic-editions-in-null-seconds/
======
AndrewKemendo
_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...](http://m.ebay.com/itm/New-Nintendo-NES-Classic-Edition-
Console-30-classic-Games-included-In-
Hand-/282251775042?hash=item41b7844c42%3Ag%3AdQgAAOSwB09YJQNg&_trkparms=pageci%253A0eaa36dd-a868-11e6-b61e-74dbd18070b6%257Cparentrq%253A55c26f941580a5eb36147d47fffca634%257Ciid%253A1)

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

~~~
tostitos1979
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.

~~~
GFischer
Digital age Beanie Babies?

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/beanie_babies_bubble_economics_and_psychology_of_a_plush_toy_investment.html)

~~~
jandrese
I've been calling them that for years.

------
typicalrunt
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 happen.

~~~
e40
_What 's wrong with our society that some people can be so morally bankrupt
and bereft of good sense._

This type of behavior is literally all around us. I recently listened to a
podcast about this exact phenomenon. It featured a couple that had a special
rug that drove cats crazy. They sold it on amazon for ~$35. A bunch of people
bought them up and sold them on ebay for a lot more, using the drop-ship
method (the reseller ordered it using their amazon account with the buyers
shipping address).

When people realized they were being ripped off, they returned it to the
original seller, who had to handle the claims due to requirements by amazon.
They lost 10's of thousands of $$. The creator called some of the people doing
this and they laughed him off, telling him they were doing nothing wrong.

It was on planet money's podcast, I think. I can try and find it if you're
curious.

~~~
kbenson
Episode 724: Cat Scam[1]

1:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/14/493810206/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/14/493810206/episode-724-cat-
scam)

~~~
zizee
As a side note, that episode left me wondering why the original seller didn't
open their own eBay store, listing the product at their desired price. I would
have thought it would have effectively undercut the resellers and gain a large
portion of the sales on eBay.

Another note, Planet Money is pretty much my favourite "always on"* podcast.
An podcast about economics might sound dull to some, but what a lot (maybe not
on HN) people don't realise is "economics" is a really a study of human
behaviour at the macro level, and a large part of human behaviour at the micro
level.

* serial was hugely addictive, but it only has short seasons, and each episode had what seemed like a huge wait between them.

~~~
edsouza
The original seller did [0]:

    
    
      This summer, Ruckel tried a new approach: He put his own product on eBay and titled it “All other eBay sellers are fake.” A few weeks later, he stumbled upon an eBay listing with a familiar title. “All other eBay sellers are fake,” it said. It wasn’t his, of course.
    

[0]
[https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/278622](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/278622)

------
mrfusion
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?

~~~
jonknee
Because now they get to be on the news with a bunch of stories talking about
how hot their new product is.

~~~
reustle
Exactly. I wouldn't have even known they released an official NES-raspberry-
pi-esque product otherwise.

------
madengr
I wonder if these things are timed for release once a target audience hits a
certain age? What is that age?

It was about 8 years between 1st gen consoles (Atari, Intellivision,
Colecovision) and 2nd gen (Nintendo). The retro-rerelease of 1st gen was about
8 years ago. I am 45 and am nostalgic about 1st gen. I was in high school for
2nd gen; no nostalgia, uninterested.

So do these retro-rerelease target those in their late 30's. Mid life crisis
yearning for nostalgia?

~~~
gohrt
What was the "Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision" retro-release? Seems like a
newish phenomenon due to falling cost of production.

Objectively, (if you put a complete novice kid in front of a console), NES and
SNES's good/great games are the best.

~~~
km3k
madengr is right, the Atari ones have been available since 2004. They've put
out a new version of it every other year or so. This year is their 7th version
of the Atari Flashback. [https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Flashback-7-Classic-
Game-Consol...](https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Flashback-7-Classic-Game-
Console/dp/B01KV6E6Z2)

There's ones for Intellivision ([https://www.amazon.com/IntelliVision-AtGames-
Flashback-Class...](https://www.amazon.com/IntelliVision-AtGames-Flashback-
Classic-Game-Console/dp/B00K2BOG66) ) and Colecovision (
[https://www.amazon.com/ColecoVision-AtGames-Flashback-
Classi...](https://www.amazon.com/ColecoVision-AtGames-Flashback-Classic-Game-
Console/dp/B00NM9R6GW) ) too, but those have only been available for the last
few years.

~~~
cpeterso
And there's been a Sega Genesis Classic Game Console (with 80 games) since
2012 or so.

[https://amzn.com/B01KV6E72O](https://amzn.com/B01KV6E72O)

------
mrfusion
It seems silly to me to allocate a product by the vageries of refresh rates
and server responsiveness.

It seems like Amazon could come up with many other ideas for allocating a
limited product. There's no rule that says it has to be based on the
millisecond ordered.

For example how about a game of chance (or skill?) to let people compete for
the product? It would feel a lot more fulfilling than an error page. And it
would give them good brand interaction.

~~~
d23
Eh, or what about loyalty to amazon? If they had honestly messaged me and said
that because of the age of my account and amount I had spent that I would get
to be part of the first group in line to purchase, I might have even bought
one just for that reason. Not that they needed more people buying them, but my
loyalty to them would probably only go up.

~~~
ianai
On the flip side, stuff like this just sours the whole thing. Why have a sign
up page to be alerted when something's available if you know it's going to be
sold out immediately?

------
michaelbuddy
It'd be one thing if the product just came out, had a lot of media fanfare and
sold out due to low volume. I mean that's reality right. But the fact that it
appeared in weekly ads for stores all over the country. It's really
expectation that hurts the most.

That's just causing hassle, distrust. Retail employees probably don't lke to
get 50 extra calls a day for a product that will be in stock for 14 seconds.
If I were a regional mgr I'd put VERY heavy pressure on corporate for say
Target to NOT show ads for this product until reasonable levels of stock are
guaranteed. Targets around the country got about 11 units. The one I went to
only had 1 spare controller. Keep in mind that a good portion of the NES games
are co-op.

There are 1800 target stores in the U.S. If they all got 11 units that means
there were only 19,000 units for that store. I heard gamestops got about 5.
Walmarts got about 6 units each.

So 6 units to walmarts 5229 stores is about 31375 unit. Gamestops 4,434 stores
at 5 units each get 21700

Who knows what amazon stocked at. Would it be reasonable to say amazon got
10000 units? I mean they sold out in a minute. Maybe it was less than that.

So those totals add up to 82,075 units. Let's round up, not forgetting the
Best Buys, Microcenters, mom-pop shops and The 800 Toys R Us stores in the
U.S. and say the United States got maybe 112,000 units total for the release.

------
joshbaptiste
Nintendo needs to come out with an official retro wifi appliance that allows
one to buy classic games from an App Store and play 2 player games over the
network.

------
darkstar999
The Amazon reviews got brigaded with 1 star reviews. They should work on
preventing this.

~~~
serge2k
Why? Nintendo decided to once again screw over their fans with their supply
games. People are getting back at them for it.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Why? Because bitching at Nintendo is not a review of the product. Obviously.

------
gm-conspiracy
Only half of my Nintendo holiday arbitrage attempts have been successful.

There will be limited availability for a short time, then a flood of product.

~~~
covercash
When I was younger, half the fun was trying to obtain the limited availability
consoles!! Now it's no longer fun, just refresh a page and hope resellers
don't buy up inventory before you can grab one.

I'm still impressed that my mom somehow managed to get me an n64 for that
first Christmas they were available! I was in disbelief since I was certain
they were impossible to get. 13yo me had all the local toy store #s memorized
and I'd call every day asking if they received any shipments. No dice.

Shadows of the Empire on Christmas morning was so awesome! Tripping up those
AT-ATs that morning was one of the more memorable moments in my gaming
history.

A few months prior, for my best friend's September birthday, his mom took us
to Toysrus and let him pick either the just released n64 +1 game OR the on-
sale SegaCD and a bunch of games. He chose... poorly.

------
strikeZ
"Nintendowned: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in (null) seconds"

This is the headline I am seeing at the moment. Seems like the guy who was
supposed to update the time forgot to do so.

------
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.

~~~
ben174
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.

~~~
ashark
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](http://www.lakka.tv)

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

------
elcapitan
The little machine is nice, but I wish they simply had some kind of an app
store for old game ROMs. I would pay the price of a mobile game for old Mario
Bros etc. Instead I have to download them from shady sources.

~~~
ixixix
Umm, ever heard of virtual console on the Wii and Wii U?

~~~
elcapitan
I don't need a Wii, I just want to play the old games (alongside with old
Atari and Sega).

------
oxide
This kind of stuff is par for the course with Nintendo hardware from what I
can tell. Is it deliberate? If so, does perceived scarcity drive more sales,
or are they just sick of warehousing unsold products?

~~~
matmann2001
Well, they did just get free advertising in the form of this TechCrunch
article. Wouldn't be surprised if other news outlets pick on up on the story
as well, with the spin of "the hot new Christmas toy".

From that perspective, having short supply on release day seems like a decent
plan. Once they get the publicity, I bet the supply increases to match demand
within the following month.

------
greenmountin
Thought of this when I was browsing AliExpress for Singles Day, today, and
found this:

[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Video-Game-Projector-PGS-
Con...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Video-Game-Projector-PGS-Console-
built-in-8bit-NES-Childhood-Games-with-2-Joystick-Support-
Dual/32526098498.html)

Available cheap for another 8 hours, maybe something to tide them over?

~~~
lucaspiller
The fact that these projectors have such low resolution, playing retro games
is about all they are good for.

------
fuqted
I had the chance to buy one yesterday morning and I didn't take it up. That
was my first hearing about it and I gotta say, beyond resell value I don't see
the appeal of this thing.

You can make a smaller NES with a Pi Zero and rented time on a 3D printer. I
don't think people would have a problem trading use of cartridges for a much
larger, cross platform selection.

Is this a business opportunity?

~~~
Jotra7
Found the guy that has never tried emulation on a Pi.

~~~
nawtacawp
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?

~~~
everfree
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 to try it.

~~~
ashark
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](http://www.lakka.tv)

Which romsets to use for various systems:

[http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6661](http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6661)

------
Kenji
All of these outages could be prevented by opening sales randomly in time
windows and in small waves. Or with preordering. The same applies to sales
with price reductions, etc. All these companies shoot themselves in the foot
with stunts like that. Why not make it more expensive if there is such a
demand, anyway?

~~~
serge2k
> Why not make it more expensive if there is such a demand

Is demand really high enough to support a higher price? Nintendo is infamous
for putting out a short supply.

I don't understand why Amazon can't just take preorders for the next batch.

------
yayitswei
What's the (null) for in the headline?

Nintendowned: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in (null) seconds

~~~
everfree
If I had to guess it's probably a non-programmer trying to be clever, even
though (null) doesn't make any sense in the context.

------
cube00
They may have all 'sold' but there are 4,000+ available on eBay at the moment.

------
chuckreynolds
idk what happened but at 1400PST on the money i loaded it... "add to cart" and
"buy now" buttons were there but their function was inoperable. That page was
broken for hours after that. And now it just says not available. ugh

------
swang
i continuously got an empty shopping cart everytime i tried to add it.

i am pretty sure the site was hit so hard they just 404'd the URL so it
wouldn't load anything. for a while the item page was blank while amazon.com
continued to load.

------
DarkMetatron
It is such an overrated product, I have one, tried it and will send it back to
amazon asap. It is Bad in so many levels, the short Controller cable is only
one.

~~~
Graziano_M
The short controller would suck, but it's kind of a requirements for
compatibility with the wiimote. It 'speaks' i2c and at the data rates they
require it's unlikely they could go much longer.

------
UnoriginalGuy
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 someone wins they have a window to purchase (e.g. 3 hours). If they
fail to purchase then the lottery picks a new winner.

Now obviously cheats will still exist, but at least they're all on a fairer
playing field with normal purchasers.

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

~~~
Jach
[https://www.amazon.com/treasuretruck](https://www.amazon.com/treasuretruck)
had it today.

~~~
btgeekboy
Also sold out in minutes.

------
IgorPartola
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.

~~~
pjlegato
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 get to skip ahead of you on the list,
because they have better connections than you do. So you wait ten years or so
for an ordinary car.

~~~
wsc981
It's not really related, but it reminds me of this joke about buying cars in
the USSR as told by Ronald Reagan:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLW7r4o2_Ow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLW7r4o2_Ow)

------
pingec
Funny thing, they are in stock in the local electronics store in my small
hometown in Slovenia :)

~~~
Keyframe
Where at? I'm in Croatia and I really wanted to buy one!

------
nashashmi
Anybody know if Sega Genesis is also coming out in similar fashion?

~~~
mantis369
I doubt it. I walked past a whole shelf of Sega Genesis emulation boxes at
Target. That and the Atari Flashback 7 seem to be heavily stocked.

------
thenormal
Days spent in my childhood...

