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Comment by dcw303 | Hacker News Reader

Good. I'm getting sick of walking into Bic Camera and asking the same question when I already know what the (disappointing) answer is going to be.

I get that they're a typical conservative Japanese company, they don't want to screw up inventory, blah blah blah, but it's getting annoying.

And slightly off topic, does anyone know what is up with the NES classic / Famicom mini? As far as I can tell that thing never restocked after launch.

You can see how it looks like Nintendo is majorly shooting themselves in the foot with these slow launches.

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It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Nintendo Classic is a device made out of the opportunity of some really cheap discontinued parts that were being totally liquidated and that's why they can't just easily increase manufacturing.

Edit: or possibly it was made out of a surplus of unused parts from other products.

I sure hope they didn't make a new version of an old system with discontinued components.

Counterargument: Would Nintendo still exist today if it had speculatively doubled/trebled production of Wii U?

Nintendo　has a crazy amount of money in the bank(think Apple).

Not to say it would be a good decision, but it would have been survivable.

How much do they still have ?

$8B

so few

Source?

https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/financials?s=...

The problem with the Wii U was Nintendo did a very poor job marketing it. There were almost no ads for it and they failed to make the consumer understand what exactly it was.

It was out for about a year before I finally figured out that it was an all new console. I thought it was a wireless tablet add-on for the Wii.

Yep, the Wii U is basically what the original Wii should have been and it's my favorite console right now. I've got 3 kids and also own a PS4 and an Xbox one and the Wii U definitely gets the most play.

That was the WORST name ever for a console. Seriously awful.

lol, I thought I am the only one making that mistake when I realized its an all new console. Turns out many people think the same

I haven't looked at the data, but with the sales of the Wii and the NDS I'd expect Nintento to be able to survive two or three full-on busters.

There's plenty of stock in smaller countries. I live in New Zealand and if I walk into any electronics retailer, I'm guaranteed to see a bunch of these in the gaming section. I've heard similar stories from people that live outside of the US.

Thanks, that's an interesting data point.

But it kinda does justify the view that they are bungling this release if they have stock left on shelves in those countries while those in US / Japan (where I am) can only resort to buying in secondary markets.

It could be that the capacity necessary for the smaller countries is insignificant, and that giving them a large number of consoles to last a while was more effective

No point in shipping half-full containers.

Not here in Belgium... I had to hunt one down a week after release - everywhere out of stock, and it doesn't seem like the stores were restocked sufficiently and all new consoles went to pre-orders.

Even phyisical copies of Zelda are very hard to find, and with Nintendo's crazy download pricing - I wanted a physical copy (70 eur for the downloadable version of the game vs 60 for the physical - really?).

They seem to be restocking in small batches and selling out immediately, at least online. According to nowinstock.net, in the US, Best Buy's been getting shipments most consistently, and received one as recently as last week. Some people find out what days they get shipments and just wait outside the door for them to open.

Right. The first two times you go to the store and can't get it, it's sort of endearing in a way... after that...

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