Quote: UncleBobQuote: darkchylde28Nintendo's Amiibo scarcity is artificially produced [...]
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Here's an article discussing it (
http://blog.lendingclub.com/ar...fect-on-prices/) which I can verify through personal observation during the Christmas when the Wii was "impossible" to find. A few years prior, I had worked in my local mall at the pizza place right next to Game Stop and made a lot of friends there. During that Christmas season I went in to pick up a couple of games and when one of the managers I knew said "Is there anything else I can get you?" I jokingly went, "Yeah, how about a Wii?" The manager put my purchases on the back shelf and waved me around the counter toward the stock room door, having me walk inside. In that room? Stacks of Wiis literally going to the ceiling. When I was incredulous and asked him how this had happened, he let me know that GameStop had an agreement with Nintendo that they had to keep all GameStop locations stocked with Wiis at all times and that there were penalties for Nintendo if they didn't. Apparently GameStop's agreement with Nintendo on this was only to put out a few in front every few days and when someone asked for one go, "I think we might have
one left, let me go check the back." Having witnessed the tower of Wiis with my own eyes and confirmed a few times that they were still in stock without any issues (to help family and friends who were pulling their hair out trying to get ahold of one), I can personally say that this smacks deeply of Nintendo creating artificial scarcity to drive demand and hype.
Quote: TigorusQuote: UncleBobQuote: darkchylde28Nintendo's Amiibo scarcity is artificially produced [...]
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It's a fairly old rumor that Nintendo has always created their own market shortage thus increasing it's popularity. Nintendo has never come out a said "Yes we create false demand by engineering our own shortages to create fevered demand and increased popularity". They have done this since the 90's though. There's no way a company can still be caught "unaware" on some new thing thus creating a shortage. EVERY Gamestop, TRU electronics, and every other Nerd/Geek I talk to about this know exactly what I'm talking about (I'm talking about 30+'s here not teens). EVERY new Nintendo system has been extremely hard to secure at launch (honestly not sure about WiiU) since the SNES. Plus with the Amiibo's, they were the only ones other than Skylanders (technically they still had a deep bench to pull from other than new waves) to be out everywhere...and by out, I mean unavailable. Infinity had most everything out by February with a few stragglers in the spring. I NEVER once was unable to find a new figure when it launched. Activision and Nintendo should take note regarding Infinity's distribution and how fast they get the merch. to the players.
Yup, exactly. Nintendo knows better, the media just hasn't gotten hard evidence of this being their actual policy. With the Wii, it's pretty hard to swallow that they weren't producing enough to meet demand and yet had enough to keep every GameStop stuffed to the gills at all times as part of a contractual obligation.
-Doug