Makes for a good story.
I mean, how many would they have made? 2,000?
They know they can do a second run before Christmas. By then they would know if they should make 20,000 or 200,000...
I mean, how many would they have made? 2,000?
They know they can do a second run before Christmas. By then they would know if they should make 20,000 or 200,000...
Eric Clark's book "The Real Toy Story" goes into the origin of this and other trends [1]. Nobody is really wild about the idea, but the industry is kind of forced into it because sales are literally all within a 3 week period. Miss it and you're dead. Tactics like the 'high demand, low availability' hot Christmas toy are a matter of survival.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Real-Toy-Story-Ruthless-Consumers/dp/...
It spreads demand out over time and over their product line. Similar strategy as how airlines advertise cheap fares to get you to fly on them, but then offer upgrades, early-bird check-in, more leg-room, additional checked bags, alcohol on the plane, etc. to make money once they have your business.
Also, I wouldn't bet on them being more likely to buy a competitor's product. Brand recognition counts for a lot, particularly with toys & other discretionary purchases. Some will, of course, but most people once "primed" will buy something close to what they initially had in mind.
It only works if you have THE hottest toy of the season - something like a product from Star Wars for instance - you create intense demand for the product but limit availability. Simultaneously you provide alternative, inferior substitute product(s) in the same franchise that's less desirable.
The parent HAS to get their child something for Christmas. The child is primed to want the desirable product. The parent drives over town looking for it. Exhausted settles on the substitute product with the promise the child will get the 'real' product after Christmas. The parent spends $50 on the substitute product before Christmas and $70 on the desirable product after Christmas. This nets the toy company $120 so they come out ahead rather than just making $70 had they stocked a large inventory of the desirable product.
Again. It reads like a conspiracy theory. I was surprised to find out it wasn't.
Since, as you are implicitly observing, Nintendo itself doesn't have one available, I would agree with your implicit argument that this effect probably doesn't apply here.
But it's still at least an interesting thing to learn about. It really recontextualized some things from my childhood, and forced me to reconsider the fact that sometimes, yeah, it really is a straight-up conspiracy. I mean, yes, there's a danger in reaching for that explanation too quickly, but on the other hand, you can't dismiss it out-of-hand either.
Still, in the absence of an obvious "part two" for Nintendo, I would expect that Nintendo has simply had a hard time calibrating demand for this product. I don't blame them, because it seems like I've certainly seen things that the Internet seems to go gaga over, but nobody actually buys them in any quantity. There's a huge amount of variance I'd expect from their analysis; this could sell anywhere from half as well as the original Nintendo to "a couple thousand units".
I'm not sure what makes this a conspiracy. It's a producer deciding managing supply of their product to maximize total revenue—not colluding and not doing anything sinister. It's capitalism 101.
Source: I was manager at a large store.
My best guess is that they are shown a working prototype, but for a company this huge (and protective) I don't know.
I'm imagining at least an order of magnitude more ballpark-judging by $60 price point and tooling costs for enclosure molds alone.