Scalping? Nintendo IPs too popular?Follow

I monitor Siliconera often, probably the only game news site I do. I started doing it mostly for the "Tales of..." games back a couple years ago when they finally started releasing them almost regularly.

I noticed yesterday morning they had an article about a special edition Majora's Mask 3DS which included a small Skull Kid figurine for a mere 10 dollars more than regular price.

Of course, once it went up for preorder on Amazon it sold out in about an hour. And Gamestop shortly there after (people seem to use them as a last resort).

Then of course Gamestop had a special "Ultimate" limited edition bundle which was just the Limited Edition with a special hard cover game guide. Meaning they probably took a number of their limited editions and bundled it themselves with the guide. Which would logically be taking stock out of the cheaper limited editions, forcing users to purchase then 89 dollar edition instead of the 49.99 dollar edition.

Today around lunch time I noticed another article about the Majora's Mask Skull Kid figurine. And decided to check availability again. Amazon was still out, but Gamestop had their "Ultimate" up for sale. Again it lasted about an hour or so.

I also noticed while looking at the Majora's Mask 3DS on Amazon, there was a suggestion for the Ocarina of Time 3D, and it was not in stock at Amazon, but was being sold for $59.99 New from other sellers. Today when I was checking Majora's Mask I noticed Ocarina was for sale again directly from Amazon, with a note "Stock on Jan 15th." It was up for 39.99 (3DS normal retail). About an hour later I checked again and it was no longer listed as being available for order from Amazon, but instead more sellers had it for 49-59 dollars, but the same "In stock on Jan 15th" note. Meaning they had likely bought up all the available orders from Amazon and were going to turn around and resell them for 10-20 dollar markup once Amazon sold them on Jan 15th...

Seems like Nintendo's IPs are just to popular to not be bought in bulk and resold...

I've been holding out for a sale on OoT for forever, I should probably just give up and pay the $40 retail for it...

I know the local gamestop has it, so that's fine.

What I would be curious to find out is how many units of MM are being produced. On the one hand, it's a remake. On the other hand, the current generation of younger 3DS players probably won't have played it, so it might have the full venn diagram of the younger potential market and the older players who want the remake (and obviously those in between).

Nintendo has always created artificial demand by shipping games in limited quantities. I remember they did it with Earthbound.

Try to order the Europe version, it comes with MM pre-installed.

GameStop is right next to my work so I'll probably check and ask. No big deal if I don't get one but for the same cost as a standard version, why not?

I'm actually hesitant to buy a majoras mask one in the off chance that Xenoblade Chronicles gets one.

Edit:
No go. Stopped in on my way home, couldn't preorder. You can still preorder the Monster Hunter 4 version. But that one comes with Monster Hunter 4 preinstalled and costs 30 dollars more. It looks nicer (IMO, brushed stainless appearance) but not a game I'm interested in enough to spend more than the base console cost right now. The Majora's Mask version doesn't come with the game, digital or physical, and is (was) the same price as the regular version.

We'll see how it goes. I probably won't pick one up on release day, no reason to get a standard one if I don't have games that require it.

Edited, Jan 14th 2015 5:25pm by TirithRR

Your hope is foolish, People will buy up all the pre-order collector editions just to sell them at a higher price on eBay or Amazon.

Gamestop made some of their limited stock available across multiple stores, only available by ordering at the store, and only certain groups of stores.

According to the clerk I asked on my way home (just checked, since I had heard). There was basically a lottery to determine which groups of stores would receive the stock. My store was chosen (or actually, the group it was part of). And it was listed as available, until trying to complete the checkout, it failed because it was actually out of stock. The clerk said that the stock had lasted a few hours.

So, you might get lucky, your store may still have some available. Must pay in full right away.