Soundwave on 01 August 2014
The reason why there was so much GCN inventory is because Nintendo massively overshipped for holiday 02 and 2003.
They bet the farm on Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, and Zelda: Wind Waker igniting sales, and while they provided boosts, the boosts were in the long term no where near what Nintendo expected.
As a result retailers got stuck with a ton of unsold GCN inventory which meant that Nintendo had to halt orders for a short while.
