Best Buy Employee On A Mission To Save R.O.B.

Posted Wed, 27 Mar 2013 | 21:45 GMT by Martin Watts

Hang in there, buddy!

Battling corporate policy for the sake of gaming history

An employee at Best Buy is currently at risk of losing his job in a desperate bid to prevent a Nintendo Entertainment System Deluxe Set from being recycled.

Sharing his story on Reddit, a customer recently brought the set into the store to have it recycled as part of Best Buy's "Renew Blue" sustainability initiative. The bundle includes a NES, Zapper light gun and perhaps most importantly of all, a Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.). The latter is considered to be fairly rare today.

The original R.O.B. accessory worked with two NES titles in the "Robot Series": Gyromite and Stack-Up. Although it was only on the market for a short time, R.O.B. actually played a pretty crucial role in Nintendo's success in North America after the video game crash of 1983. It was pitched as a toy, thus making the system seem much more appealing to retailers. The rest, as we now know, is history.

The anonymous Best Buy employee had asked the store's manager if he could take the set home, but was quickly informed that he would be fired, as it was strictly against company policy.

He is now considering risking his job so as to ensure R.O.B. doesn't meet an unfitting end:

I tried everything I could at a store level to get the ok to take it...but to no avail...So now the gloves are off. I'm not letting him pull the plug on my Nintendo baby that is on life support, hidden from bad corporate policy.

The set has now been hidden in the store's warehouse, so that he has a couple of days to devise a plan to get R.O.B. out of there.

At this point this mission is a must. I'm doing it for everyone that's ever had a R.O.B.

We'll be sure to let you know if everyone's favourite Robotic Operating Buddy does eventually escape the corporate clutches of Best Buy's recycling initiative.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/03/best_buy_employee_on_a_mission_to_save_rob

Stupid policy, but it's not worth getting fired over either. The real problem here is the manager. He or she should have just looked the other way and let the employee have it. Technically it is recycling. Maybe the employee could have brought in some tech junk to recycle in R.O.B.'s place to make everything even out for the store.

Wow, he could've take it without telling anyone, I'm sure nobody would've noticed.

I would so take it lol

let's make a petition.

I got one on Xmas morning, 1985, and my heart goes out to this brave soul :D

Also: the reason ROB was created was so that many retailers would carry it *at all* ("appealing" doesn't qutite do justice to the situation at the time), since they refused to take another bath on videogames, which were a dead letter in '85, outside arcades and the PC (writ large) scene. ROB let Nintedo sell it as a toy, and not a game system--the rest is history.

Well, I wish him the best of luck. Would be terrible to let all that go to waste.

It looks to be in mint condition, has the person who brought it into best buy never heard of ebay!

I would've just taken it, and been like "what? I WAS recycling it! I didn't know!!"

do it. You can always find another job eventually,but it's real hard to find another R.O.B.