superchunk said:
Supply is Nintendo's issue. Retailers are just the pipeline in which that supply is delivered. Retailers generally do put qty limits, at least they did last time I looked. However, online systems can only be so smart and scalpers do use bots as well as groups of people. NES Classic was never easy to find. Every bit of stock that came in was gobbled up instantly. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get one much of the time and then just gave up. Alternatively there is another solution. Put the price at the appropriate amount. People are obviously willing to pay $200. Put the price at $150. That will make scalpers rethink the risk involved, buying less, as well as still be in the realm of where folks see value benefit for the product. It would also be more in-line with the VC cost per game ($7*25=$175), especially when you include the unique hardware, new features, and games not available in VC. I'd argue this is still a customer focused change as the total price is less than VC games overall and it would allow stock to not automatically shift to scalpers. |
You are missing the meaning of what I am saying.
lets say Nintendo shipped 10m of SNES classics at launch. But 5m ends up destroyed through some accident at sea during shipping by the shipping company (made up 'Maston'). Would that be the shipping company ('Maston') or Nintendos fault that the end result is only 5m SNES classics are up for sale at launch? In most cases this is the shipping company's fault not Nintendo who did their best to ship to customers but another company was at fault for the large loss of inventory. In a way this is the same thing as a scalper who is taking a large portion of product away from others by ordering 10's and in some cases 100's of product to resell that the average consumer won't look at, which puts blame on nintendo for lack of supply when customers look to retailers for the item.
In addition just because more supply is available doesn't mean scalpers still won't grab every product they can get there hands on, because of the NES Classic effect. As it's still in demand. The only time scalping will decrease is if the items they bought dont sell for more than the MSRP they bought it at.
Also if you don't believe Amazon was a huge issue..I give you this image that was a comment on Wario64's twitter. A single order, that likely other scalpers did the same (maybe not as much quantity).
Nintendo is not trying to overprice a product just because of scalpers. Companies spend time on R&D, and marketing to calculate a MSRP. That's why it's not the $150-200 you are suggesting.