Why are recent release 3DS games nowhere to be found in B&M?

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I've been looking at all the major chains: Walmart, Best Buy, Fry's, Target, GameStop, Toys R Us, and none of them have Luigi's Mansion in stock. When I was trying to find Fire Emblem a few months ago, the same thing happened and I was forced to purchase digitally. Anyone else think this is a conspiracy by Nintendo to promote their eShop?

Also, if you know any store that carries Luigi's Mansion, let me know.
 
[quote name='0_0'] Anyone else think this is a conspiracy by Nintendo to promote their eShop?[/QUOTE]
Yes.

My local Walmart and Gamestop have pretty much any recent 3DS release, but that's not the case in most places.
 
I've had crap luck finding anything for it unless I buy day-1 anymore. If they think this will force people to go digital.. hah. Some maybe, some of us will just stop buying though.
 
and in all honesty, GameStop has become a cesspool of not getting new games in to force used sales. Best Buy seems to have the best stock of new/sealed games anymore. Most Target stores I have been to have really butchered their game sections down to near nothing, Walmarts are... Walmart. Kmart is just a hole.
 
I wonder of that email really does exist, that would be news worthy of any big blog site. Digital is ok but when companies try there best to give individuals actual ownership of the game they purchased no control I have to lay my foot down.
 
[quote name='skiizim']I wonder of that email really does exist, that would be news worthy of any big blog site. Digital is ok but when companies try there best to give individuals actual ownership of the game they purchased no control I have to lay my foot down.[/QUOTE]

That's what my manager told me but I've never seen the actual email so I personally can't verify it :/ I can try to reconfirm with him that he didn't make it up though
 
I spoke to my Nintendo rep who works for corporate and he said the new business model approach Nintendo is taking basically eliminates excessive stock of physical copies of games. All of 2012 Nintendo went to every major retailer multiple times to check quantities on hand of physical games and stores always seem to have the same or a similar amount as last time.

Considering the cost of packaging, shipping, etc. Nintendo has taken this new approach that not only promotes digital sales but also allows them to measure the demand for the game on a bigger scale.
 
[quote name='THT']I spoke to my Nintendo rep who works for corporate and he said the new business model approach Nintendo is taking basically eliminates excessive stock of physical copies of games. All of 2012 Nintendo went to every major retailer multiple times to check quantities on hand of physical games and stores always seem to have the same or a similar amount as last time.

Considering the cost of packaging, shipping, etc. Nintendo has taken this new approach that not only promotes digital sales but also allows them to measure the demand for the game on a bigger scale.[/QUOTE]

That's just a dumb answer.

So instead of overstocking shelves they are going to deliberately under stock?

You don't save any money but sending repeat small shipments
 
[quote name='GBAstar']That's just a dumb answer.

So instead of overstocking shelves they are going to deliberately under stock?

You don't save any money but sending repeat small shipments[/QUOTE]
It's also preventing a lot of consumers from even buying the game; a lot of the casual gamers will just walk away and never end up even buying the game now
 
These points are all true, but this will also help Nintendo by not having to discount games. Nintendo games usually hold their value, but look at some recent examples of "big" name Nintendo titles being cut as low as $5 (like Kirby Mass Attack).
 
^ Indeed.

Sure, it does seem like a poor response or move on Nintendo's end. But, look at it as a marketing initiative: doing this creates a higher demand for the game, thus creating guaranteed sales. And, when they ship physical copies of the game, they want exactly that: guaranteed sales. They'd rather give stores copies they know the stores will sell, rather than spend the money shelving games and making sure they are "always available" as a cartridge when they can offer the same "always available" as a digital sale instead.

Not saying I agree with the business model or anything, or if I feel any support for it (in fact, I argued with him on the subject), but it's working out for them so far. They've sold, what, 150,000+ of Fire Emblem and 320,000+ of Luigi's Mansion to date (including digital sales). Posting a $900+ billion loss last year compared to this... Nintendo: $_$
 
It's going to backfire as well though, look at how many sales of Fire Emblem went to the secondhand market because of this.
 
I can promise you that many people would rather pay through the nose to get a phyiscal copy from a scalper then to pay MSRP for a digital copy.

Gamestop and other big B&M stores can't be happy to have to tell customers "No we haven't had any copies of Luigi's Mansion since release......"
 
[quote name='GBAstar']

Gamestop and other big B&M stores can't be happy to have to tell customers "No we haven't had any copies of Luigi's Mansion since release......"[/QUOTE]

It's true; my store has been saying that every single day....:lol:
 
This only creates a larger market of second hand sales. People will check the values of their games on ebay and see they are worth more than what they paid and they will sell them there. This also might create false demand as people will buy up every title now hoping to sell it as a profit.

However, all my local gamestops have at least one copy of Fire Emblem in stock, and I have seen it at almost every store over the past few weeks.

Most people don't want to buy digital, the only people buying digital are hardcore gamers, the average casual gamer wants to buy a cartridge.

Another problem created by this is that almost all copies of Nintendo games sent to GS stores will now be gutted, since the stores only receive 1-2 copies of each game now and the last copy is always gutted. This means the only sealed copies will go to places like Walmart, BB and Target. Perhaps its time for me to start collecting sealed games so I can profit in the future.

Luigi's Mansion is on every demo unit, so I can see why people would want to buy it, but when the stores have no copies in stock that makes it impossible for people to make an impulse purchase, they will likely forget about the game and not buy it.

Good thing I always know months in advance if I really want a game
 
[quote name='jkam']Weird I saw a bunch of Luigi's Mansion at Target yesterday, didn't realize it was hard to find.[/QUOTE]

It's sold out everywhere where I live; just picked up the 2nd to last copy at my local Best Buy.
 
[quote name='skiizim']I wonder of that email really does exist, that would be news worthy of any big blog site. Digital is ok but when companies try there best to give individuals actual ownership of the game they purchased no control I have to lay my foot down.[/QUOTE]

That email was never sent to stores from what I have ever seen. There was an email stating that there was a shortage of Luigi's Mansion and if a customer doesn't want to wait to offer the digital copy.

I think Nintendo doesn't want to get burned (paying for and) shipping out 10,000 copies of a game and only selling 8,000 and having to reduce price. I also think the DLC is a bonus.

Nintendo is notorious for creating their own demand. They do it with every single game I have seen come out in the past couple of years. Some places it is worse than others (None of the stores in my area have any copies of Luigi's Mansion. Toys, Target, Best Buy, Gamestop, even Walmart). My Gamestop barely can keep Fire Emblem and Monster Hunter in.

I don't agree with the comment that Gamestop doesn't get any new in to push used sales.
If new copies aren't sold at Gamestop, most people won't bring their copy in to trade. There were numbers done that said 70% of customers that purchase their new game from Gamestop will bring it back to Gamestop to trade in for credit later. It was something like 30% do if they purchase from another store (could be bogus numbers but it was in an email some big shot sent down to stores a while back).

It is also based on Pre-orders. Retail stores are allotted a specific amount for all of their locations. Let's say Bob's Game Shop has 5,000 locations and is given 15,000 copies of a game. They look at the amount of pre-orders at stores. If the top store has 200 copies pre-ordered, they will most likely send them 250-300 copies just to cover any excess demand.
The same system can hurt stores, if their lowest store has 3 copies on pre-order. They may send 50 copies of the game. What happens when 100 + people come in? They are outta luck.

(sorry for the long post, I ended up having a lot to say... thanks if you really read it)
 
[quote name='jkam']Weird I saw a bunch of Luigi's Mansion at Target yesterday, didn't realize it was hard to find.[/QUOTE]

Over the weekend someone had mentioned it being hard to find at the one game store I saw no less than 20 different sealed copies that day >.>
 
[quote name='soonersfan60']These points are all true, but this will also help Nintendo by not having to discount games. Nintendo games usually hold their value, but look at some recent examples of "big" name Nintendo titles being cut as low as $5 (like Kirby Mass Attack).[/QUOTE]

No, that's cause Mass Attack sucked.
 
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