Post by dschroll on Feb 14, 2015 1:23:37 GMT -5
Nintendo recently released their Q3 financials and lo and behold they made a profit, albeit nothing that was worth writing home about. It was mostly notable because Nintendo had been previously reporting losses and it seems things are back on track. Looking more closely at the financials and you'll see that a large part of the reason Nintendo was profitable was due to exchange rates going in their favor. That's great for now, but what's going to happen when those exchange rates start going the other way? While I'm sure Nintendo has been making some positive steps to turning things around such as releasing top notch games, for some reason Nintendo prefers to leave money on the table.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about the ridiculousness of making extremely limited runs of very desirable amiibos or these limited edition new 3DS XL systems. Let's start with the amiibos, which Nintendo has mishandled in every way possible. Nintendo made a huge mistake announcing that certain figures would be more rare than others. That had scalpers snapping up any figure that wasn't based on a wildly popular franchise. This resulted in fans of those franchises getting left out in the cold as they couldn't get the amiibos they wanted without paying ridiculous prices on eBay. Did Nintendo do anything to address it? They could've made more and would've easily sold more. Clearly there is a demand for some of these lesser known characters. Nope, Nintendo doesn't do anything like that and proceeds to announce wave 3.
Nintendo had some special news about wave 3 just to further piss people off. Here in North America anyway, Nintendo was making some wave 3 figures exclusive to retailers. Metaknight exclusive to Best Buy. Shulk exclusive to Gamestop. Lucario exclusive to Toys R Us. And Rosalina exclusive to Target. And to add insult to injury, staggered release dates that just further confused people. Fans who wanted to collect these retailer exclusive figures better have those retailers near them, because otherwise they were screwed. As expected, each of those retailer exclusives sold out quickly. Best Buy sold out of Meta knights within a couple of weeks pre orders opened. In fact, Best Buy announced that they would have no figures to even put on their shelves as all would be allocated to fill pre orders. Target was probably the worst of the bunch because pre orders never opened for Rosalina for more than 5 minutes and so the only way to get that character was go to a Target store at opening on release day. All sold out of Rosalina within the first hour. Target later announced that they would not be getting any more Rosalinas as it was a one time deal. Again, fans left out in the cold who didn't show up on day 1.
I went to a Gamestop to pick up Shulk and the employee there was ranting to me telling me how frustrated he was. They ended up getting Shulk on a different date than Nintendo said, so he said they were all confused as to when stuff was supposed to come in and that his store could've easily sold a bunch more figures had Nintendo made more. But for some reason, Nintendo doesn't want make enough supply to meet demand. I don't get it. These are plastic figures for crying out loud. The molds and manufacturing tools should all be in tact. At the very least Nintendo should have these things for purchase on their website. Instead Nintendo would rather leave money on the table and create this artificial demand for these things.
Now we're dealing with that again with these limited edition new 3DS XL systems. Again, Nintendo made the dumb mistake of announcing the Majora's Mask and Monster Hunter systems were a limited run. Queue scalpers to buy up all possible inventory. Pre orders sold out within hours of going up on sites such as Best Buy and Gamestop. Again, Target didn't open up pre orders so you had to show up to their store early and wait in line outside if you wanted any hopes of getting one.
I stopped by 3 different stores today looking for a MM 3DS XL and everyone said they sold out within minutes of the store opening. Ugh. I give up Nintendo. Why do you make it this difficult for me to give you my money? There are a ton of fans out there like me that would gladly give you $200 to upgrade to this new system, but clearly you don't want our business. Nintendo could easily sell another million MM 3DS XLs, but has chosen not to for whatever reason. They could easily appease their fans by NOT announcing that the MM 3DS XL would be a limited run but rather that inventory will be replenished in the coming weeks. That drives away all the scalpers and helps fans feel confident that if they want that system they can get one. Instead, these limited run systems end up hurting Nintendo more than anything. It pisses off Nintendo's fans that aren't able to secure one as that is the bulk of the people that are trying to buy these things. These are the people that are helping Nintendo weather through the bad times. And instead Nintendo seems like it doesn't really care about making sure its fans get one of these, as long as they are able to unload all of their inventory as quickly as possible.
So, as a Nintendo fan, a guy who loves to give Nintendo so much of his money, I am finding myself getting extremely upset with these limited runs on things (New 3DS XLs and amiibos). Nintendo could easily sell more if they made more, but they are choosing not to. They are making people jump through hoops to get one and in my opinion it's doing a big disservice to their fans and to their shareholders who are looking for Nintendo to be making a profit from sales rather than from exchange rate fluctuations. So, does nintendo hate your money as much as they do mine?
P.S. One more thing why Nintendo hates money is they don't have their shit together with amazon. Why can I not buy Nintendo hardware on one of the biggest retailers in the country? I've heard stories about how Nintendo had butted heads with amazon, but again, they are just hurting their fans and stockholders by not working out a deal. They could easily be doing even more business if they had amazon on their side.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about the ridiculousness of making extremely limited runs of very desirable amiibos or these limited edition new 3DS XL systems. Let's start with the amiibos, which Nintendo has mishandled in every way possible. Nintendo made a huge mistake announcing that certain figures would be more rare than others. That had scalpers snapping up any figure that wasn't based on a wildly popular franchise. This resulted in fans of those franchises getting left out in the cold as they couldn't get the amiibos they wanted without paying ridiculous prices on eBay. Did Nintendo do anything to address it? They could've made more and would've easily sold more. Clearly there is a demand for some of these lesser known characters. Nope, Nintendo doesn't do anything like that and proceeds to announce wave 3.
Nintendo had some special news about wave 3 just to further piss people off. Here in North America anyway, Nintendo was making some wave 3 figures exclusive to retailers. Metaknight exclusive to Best Buy. Shulk exclusive to Gamestop. Lucario exclusive to Toys R Us. And Rosalina exclusive to Target. And to add insult to injury, staggered release dates that just further confused people. Fans who wanted to collect these retailer exclusive figures better have those retailers near them, because otherwise they were screwed. As expected, each of those retailer exclusives sold out quickly. Best Buy sold out of Meta knights within a couple of weeks pre orders opened. In fact, Best Buy announced that they would have no figures to even put on their shelves as all would be allocated to fill pre orders. Target was probably the worst of the bunch because pre orders never opened for Rosalina for more than 5 minutes and so the only way to get that character was go to a Target store at opening on release day. All sold out of Rosalina within the first hour. Target later announced that they would not be getting any more Rosalinas as it was a one time deal. Again, fans left out in the cold who didn't show up on day 1.
I went to a Gamestop to pick up Shulk and the employee there was ranting to me telling me how frustrated he was. They ended up getting Shulk on a different date than Nintendo said, so he said they were all confused as to when stuff was supposed to come in and that his store could've easily sold a bunch more figures had Nintendo made more. But for some reason, Nintendo doesn't want make enough supply to meet demand. I don't get it. These are plastic figures for crying out loud. The molds and manufacturing tools should all be in tact. At the very least Nintendo should have these things for purchase on their website. Instead Nintendo would rather leave money on the table and create this artificial demand for these things.
Now we're dealing with that again with these limited edition new 3DS XL systems. Again, Nintendo made the dumb mistake of announcing the Majora's Mask and Monster Hunter systems were a limited run. Queue scalpers to buy up all possible inventory. Pre orders sold out within hours of going up on sites such as Best Buy and Gamestop. Again, Target didn't open up pre orders so you had to show up to their store early and wait in line outside if you wanted any hopes of getting one.
I stopped by 3 different stores today looking for a MM 3DS XL and everyone said they sold out within minutes of the store opening. Ugh. I give up Nintendo. Why do you make it this difficult for me to give you my money? There are a ton of fans out there like me that would gladly give you $200 to upgrade to this new system, but clearly you don't want our business. Nintendo could easily sell another million MM 3DS XLs, but has chosen not to for whatever reason. They could easily appease their fans by NOT announcing that the MM 3DS XL would be a limited run but rather that inventory will be replenished in the coming weeks. That drives away all the scalpers and helps fans feel confident that if they want that system they can get one. Instead, these limited run systems end up hurting Nintendo more than anything. It pisses off Nintendo's fans that aren't able to secure one as that is the bulk of the people that are trying to buy these things. These are the people that are helping Nintendo weather through the bad times. And instead Nintendo seems like it doesn't really care about making sure its fans get one of these, as long as they are able to unload all of their inventory as quickly as possible.
So, as a Nintendo fan, a guy who loves to give Nintendo so much of his money, I am finding myself getting extremely upset with these limited runs on things (New 3DS XLs and amiibos). Nintendo could easily sell more if they made more, but they are choosing not to. They are making people jump through hoops to get one and in my opinion it's doing a big disservice to their fans and to their shareholders who are looking for Nintendo to be making a profit from sales rather than from exchange rate fluctuations. So, does nintendo hate your money as much as they do mine?
P.S. One more thing why Nintendo hates money is they don't have their shit together with amazon. Why can I not buy Nintendo hardware on one of the biggest retailers in the country? I've heard stories about how Nintendo had butted heads with amazon, but again, they are just hurting their fans and stockholders by not working out a deal. They could easily be doing even more business if they had amazon on their side.