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Nintendo: Hey, listen!

This is a plea for Nintendo, I hope that somebody there will read it.

A few days ago you announced the next "Mini" console in your attempt to make even more money of some 25+ year old games, released for the hundredth time. Please. Stop. Or at the very least change your business practices.

I hope that I speak for a majority in the gaming community, when I say that we've just about had enough of yet another Nintendo console (or accessory...) which won't be available at launch because you simply can't (or won't?) make enough. We've had enough of the scalpers who pre-order all stock before we even get a chance to look the device up. Enough of the scalpers who then continue to sell those consoles on eBay for double or triple the price. Isn't it bad for your business?

Let's talk about a hypothetical scenario: you could sell 1 million of the SNES Mini. But you produce only 500k. That makes 500k of your potential fans/customers angry, because they can't even pre-order it. BUT! Many of the first 500k will be scalpers who bought your stock only to resell it at a higher price. I know, you get your money, but you hurt your own fans. You alienate them and make them hate you. Wouldn't it be better for you to meet demand right from the start? You'd win more fans. You could make more money. I simply don't get it why this consoles are made so limited on purpose.

And it's not only the SNES Mini and the NES Mini. Your other products like the Amiibos and the Switch ended up just the same.

Now this is unconfirmed information which I picked up from a forum, so I apologize if any of the following turns out to be "fake news": Game UK put up the SNES Mini for pre-order yesterday. It was sold out within 45 Minutes! Amazon UK was similar: all pre-orders were gone within the hour. Amazon Germany was even worse: you couldn't find the SNES Mini through the search, but if you had the direct link to the product you could already preorder before the preorders went live. Completely sold out, too. Do you see a pattern here? I'm betting that at least half of these pre-orders will end up on eBay the day people get their packages.


I honestly hope that you'll see the error of your ways and live up to the hype next time (maybe with an "N64 Mini"?) and produce enough for everyone.

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