Reggie Announces Wii Rain Check Program - Pay now, get one in January

[quote name='HotShotX']Is this whole thing REALLY from Reggie & Nintendo, or is it another ploy from GameStop to push preorders/reserves on everyone.

~HotShotX[/QUOTE]
It is from Reggie, but I'm sure it is also a ploy from Gamestop as well.

This will not end well.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Let me clarify: I never said there are no good third party titles on the Wii. I will say, however, that it suffers the same sort of ailment that the PSP has: far too few diamonds and far too much rough.

There are indeed very good third party Wii titles (I have, for instance, Trauma Center and MLB PowerPros), but you have to be a diligent consumer to find them. If you don't pay attention to the Wii market, where software is released in such a deluge, the majority of it being complete garbage - you'll come up with the perception that the Wii is only releasing garbage if the publisher isn't Nintendo.

So, it isn't so much "the Wii has no good third party games" as much as it is "there's so much junk coming out that I have neither the time nor the patience to wade through all this Ninjabread Man and Hannah Montana crap."[/quote]
Wha? But that's true of anything. If you're not willing to do due dilligence and learn the difference between crap and quality, you deserve what you get. If you walk into a Best Buy for music and just buy based on what is most readily available and heavily promoted, you're going to end up with Britney, Michael Buble, Beyonce, Toby Keith, and My Chemical Romance. In other words, utter crap. It's the same with movies, books....everything. What's popular isn't always necessarily what's good. Moreover, 90% of the stuff out there ranges from mediocre to outright garbage. You have to be willing to do the work to find the Zack & Wiki's of the world, and that's true for every console ever made.
 
[quote name='MorPhiend']
I don't think we have a lack of quality third party games on Wii. I think we have a lack of purchases of said items. I, for one, am having a blast with GHIII, MoH:H2, have Z&W still unplayed, and I have the likes of The Godfather and RE4 from earlier in the year on my shelf waiting to be gotten to. I don't understand this mentality that Wii has no good titles. I don't have time to get to all of the goos titles. But it could always be better.;)[/QUOTE]

Of course, it's totally subjective on whether one likes the third party offerings.

GHIII is superior on 360 and PS3 (better graphics, works better on HDTV since it's 720p, DLC etc.).

Medal of Honor is ok, but there are much better FPS games on 360, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Bioshock and on and on.

Z&W is a niche game, definitely not for everyone. Godfather and RE4 many already played on last gen systems and so on.

So it's been pretty weak for me. But others dig the above games, love the mini game collections etc. So for them the 3rd party support has been fine.

Just not so good for the more mainstream gamer that wants to play the top tier, mainstream third party FPS, racing, action etc. games.
 
[quote name='Tybee']Wha? But that's true of anything. If you're not willing to do due dilligence and learn the difference between crap and quality, you deserve what you get. If you walk into a Best Buy for music and just buy based on what is most readily available and heavily promoted, you're going to end up with Britney, Michael Buble, Beyonce, Toby Keith, and My Chemical Romance. In other words, utter crap. It's the same with movies, books....everything. What's popular isn't always necessarily what's good. Moreover, 90% of the stuff out there is crap. You have to be willing to do the work to find the good stuff, and that's true for every console ever made.[/QUOTE]

I agree, the "too much junk to find the good stuff" argument is pretty weak.

My problems that there has yet to be a 3rd party game in a genre I like that I deemed good enough to buy (and that wasn't something I played before on another system).

I'd love to see it change, but I doubt it will to a great extent. With my tastes, the 360 will be my main gaming platform, with the Wii getting turned on a few times a year for a big first party game and maybe a couple of 3rd party titles somewhere down the line. And I'm fine with that.
 
[quote name='Tybee']Wha? But that's true of anything. If you're not willing to do due dilligence and learn the difference between crap and quality, you deserve what you get. If you walk into a Best Buy for music and just buy based on what is most readily available and heavily promoted, you're going to end up with Britney, Michael Buble, Beyonce, Toby Keith, and My Chemical Romance. In other words, utter crap. It's the same with movies, books....everything. What's popular isn't always necessarily what's good. Moreover, 90% of the stuff out there ranges from mediocre to ouright garbage. You have to be willing to do the work to find the Zack & Wiki's of the world, and that's true for every console ever made.[/QUOTE]

Oh, that's very true. Touche.
 
*Little children run to the tree on Christmas Day. They open a gift that reads....*

"This is Santa, I couldn't get Nintendo to make any more Wii's, so you will get yours next month. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!"

*The Little kid looks confused and proclaims...*

"This is fucking bullshit! fuck SANTA!!!"
 
This is GameStop. They'll sell off your copy and tell you "First come, first serve." It's happened to many that had reserves.
 
In case you want to listen to the call:
[media]http://www.cheapassgamer.com/podcast/reggiewiisupply.mp3[/media]
 
oh you think this rain check system is bad...wait til there is a massive viral outbreak and there is a limited amount of medication...you think people will wait it out ??!?!?
 
This isn't going to solve the problem that the invertebrate parents are facing right now: their precious little fucking children can't have their Christmas ruined by--oh my God!!--NOT GETTING A NINTENDO WII!!

Also, I don't really think the Wii shortage is going to end until the next iteration or generation of Nintendo console is announced. I will go on the record right now and say that this will be a 'hot/next-to-impossible item' again during the '08 holiday rush.* Sure, the lines outside will be a little bit shorter, and the chance to find one in a store during a random summer afternoon will go up from 10% to 20%, but that's about it. And we'll see how everyone is rationalizing the shortage then.

At this point, the zealots have already secured at least one Wii, as has the "PSWii60" crowd (raises hand, except about the "PS" part). In other words, it's all sociological pressure at this point, clueless people wanting a Wii and not exactly being sure why. Like Ohio State has been to Lloyd Carr for the last seven years, it's in their fucking heads.

P.S. Personally, if I were in the position of still seeking one of these fuckers, for myself, I would be willing to pay up now to get one within the first three months of the new year. Don't want or need the 'adventure' of trying to track one down 'in the wild'.

*--Cut, quote, and wail away, apologists!
 
[quote name='bigdaddy']*Little children run to the tree on Christmas Day. They open a gift that reads....*

"This is Santa, I couldn't get Nintendo to make any more Wii's, so you will get yours next month. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!"

*The Little kid looks confused and proclaims...*

"This is fucking bullshit! fuck SANTA!!!"[/QUOTE]

...Lewis Black? Is that you?
 
oh shit my 5 year old nephew just discovered the Wii and now knows what it looks like.. Either I need to hide it when he comes over or change it's position from up right to on it's side to confuse him hehe :p

But he wants a PSP or DS.

Too young I tell ya!!
 
[quote name='jollydwarf']This isn't going to solve the problem that the invertebrate parents are facing right now: their precious little fucking children can't have their Christmas ruined by--oh my God!!--NOT GETTING A NINTENDO WII!!

Also, I don't really think the Wii shortage is going to end until the next iteration or generation of Nintendo console is announced. I will go on the record right now and say that this will be a 'hot/next-to-impossible item' again during the '08 holiday rush.* Sure, the lines outside will be a little bit shorter, and the chance to find one in a store during a random summer afternoon will go up from 10% to 20%, but that's about it. And we'll see how everyone is rationalizing the shortage then.

At this point, the zealots have already secured at least one Wii, as has the "PSWii60" crowd (raises hand, except about the "PS" part). In other words, it's all sociological pressure at this point, clueless people wanting a Wii and not exactly being sure why. Like Ohio State has been to Lloyd Carr for the last seven years, it's in their fucking heads.

P.S. Personally, if I were in the position of still seeking one of these fuckers, for myself, I would be willing to pay up now to get one within the first three months of the new year. Don't want or need the 'adventure' of trying to track one down 'in the wild'.

*--Cut, quote, and wail away, apologists![/QUOTE]

Social, not sociological. Christ on a pogo stick.

[quote name='Callandor']...Lewis Black? Is that you?[/QUOTE]

Heh.
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']oh shit my 5 year old nephew just discovered the Wii and now knows what it looks like.. Either I need to hide it when he comes over or change it's position from up right to on it's side to confuse him hehe :p

But he wants a PSP or DS.

Too young I tell ya!![/quote]
That's nonsense! When I was 2, I had my first game console. An NES.

NEVER TOO YOUNG TO GAME! :p
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']oh shit my 5 year old nephew just discovered the Wii and now knows what it looks like.. Either I need to hide it when he comes over or change it's position from up right to on it's side to confuse him hehe :p

But he wants a PSP or DS.

Too young I tell ya!![/quote]

Ugh. When we kept my youngest niece a few months ago, she kept accidentally cracking the Wiimote against our coffee table while playing tennis and bowling. I'm amazed it suffered no damage.

*WHACK* "Oops...Sorry!" (ten seconds later) *WHACK* "Sorry!" (15 more seconds) *WHACK*

My wife had to send me in the other room to prevent an aneurism.
 
[quote name='Tsukento']That's nonsense! When I was 2, I had my first game console. An NES.

NEVER TOO YOUNG TO GAME! :p[/QUOTE]

Whipper snapper. My first system was an Atari, and I had to steal it, ,fom my older brother... but he was a stoner and didnt know it was missing for a few months.
 
My first console was the Colecovision. I eventaully got the Atari attachment and I remember getting the dreaded E.T. from my mom for my birthday one year:puke:
 
[quote name='bmulligan']Do you have to pay for your raincheck in full or do you just put a deposit down ?[/quote]

Well the OP says pay Gamestop $250 NOW and get a Wii in January so I would say you have to pay 100% up front.
 
Ouch. If they don't come up with those unts, there's a good possibility they will be sued for many amounts of money.

This seems to have only one solution since production of Wii's is practically a constant. Other retailers will be shorted systems in January and Gamestop will get all promised preordered units.

What I wonder is why in the hell Nintendo would make such a deal with Gamestop, of all companies. What incentive could they possibly offer Nintendo to get this type of exclusivity? A kickback on used games sales maybe ?
 
They are the most experienced retailer when it comes to preorder rape. This is probably right up their alley and they probably have a good infrastructure already in place to do it.

Nintendo only gets the benefit of moving all those units ahead of time and collecting their free interest from the loan.
 
But when your units are flying off the shelves in all outlets, it doesn't make sense to promise one specific retailer extra unit deliveries in January. Some kind of deal had to have been made.
 
A deal HAS been made in that only Gamestop is doing it. But that doesnt necessarily mean that the deal is as insidious as massive moneyhatting.

They couldve simply decided that no one was better qualified to handle such a thing.

Units flying off the shelves are irrelevant to helping you sell out FUTURE shipments before they arrive. If Toysrus could handle such a program better than Gamestop, I'm sure a bid would've been made.
 
[quote name='jollydwarf']*When I rant, I like to touch my mysterious lady parts. I'm a bad, bad girl.[/QUOTE]

Your gimmick sucks.
 
Well, I don't know you*, but hello and goodbye.

*--Since when is an asterisk footnote a "gimmick"?? While I didn't take it from them, I see the chud.com guys use them all the time. And I respect them a helluva lot more than 95% of the registered users here.
 
[quote name='jollydwarf']*I am arbitrarily using my shitty gimmick.[/QUOTE]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimmick

Thus, a gimmick is a special feature for the sake of having a special feature.
Click to expand...

You are a shitty poster, who, by mere coincidence, writes shitty posts. You use an asterisk in every single one of these posts. The repetitive use of an unneeded "special feature", in this case an asterisk, for the sake of using it can be classified as a gimmick. The shitty quality of your posts is reflected in this gimmick. Therefore, you have a shitty gimmick.

See what I did there?
 
[quote name='Tsukento']That's nonsense! When I was 2, I had my first game console. An NES.

NEVER TOO YOUNG TO GAME! :p[/QUOTE]


I considered giving him at least a DS (a psp is over kill for a 5 year old) and I wanted to see how he handles hand held systems so I gave him one of those cheap LCD games and then later learned he LEFT/LOST IT in a store!!!

argh... forget giving him a DS... He will take it everywhere and drop it/break it/loose it.

As for the pre-pay program, I have the feeling that there will be some shady things going on with gamestop. As in when it's time to pick up the item, Gamestop can't find your file and will accuse you of faking the receipt to get a Wii. Why they picked gamestop as a priority company is beyond me..but my guess is that gamestop paid nintendo under the table to get gamestop on top of the list of priority shipments. Reggie's announcement sounded quite suspicious to me.
 
thanks to kotaku for the article http://kotaku.com/gaming/wii/gamestop-outlines-wii-certificate-program-334053.php
Reggie Fils-Aime may have referred to it as a raincheck program, but GameStop's official name for their pre-pay Wii program hitting on Dec. 20 is the Wii Certificate Program. There are a couple other things Reggie was a bit off on, according to the details released this morning from GameStop. The Wii Certificate program will run just one day, Friday, December 21. Customers will be able to go in and hand out the full $250 to reserve a Wii console for pick-up on January 25. Reservations must be made in-person at any GameStop or EB Games location in the U.S., including those in Puerto Rico and Hawaii. The number of reservations available at each store is limited and only one Wii can be reserved per a household. The certificate itself will be in a custom-designed DVD case featuring a picture of the Wii and Mario. Once the reserved Will arrives customrs will receive a telephone call saying it's available for pick-up. So let me get this straight, you give GameStop your $250 and they get to sit on it for a full month, earning interest, and in return you get an empty DVD case and eventually a Wii? The least they could have done is thrown in a T-Shirt that read: "My Parents Waited Too Long to Shop for Me So All I Got for Christmas was this Shirt and a Lot of Empty Promises. See you in Therapy in Five Years." Hmmm, maybe that's a bit too long for a slogan.
Click to expand...
i guess this beats standing in line for one? but still, the thought of giving your $250 to GS for a whole month doesn't seem right to me.
 
I suppose preordering a game is kinda the same concept...but I see where you're going with that.

I dunno. I'm sitting this one out.
 
This is a sign of one of two things:

1) Nintendo really is sitting on a production backlog of these things and expects to ship Gamestop more than the three at a time that I see come in.

2) Gamestop has lost their fucking minds. Seriously. I was a manager when the 360 came out and we took more pre-orders than we could actually end up filling. It was MONTHS of pissed customers and constant calls asking when their system would show up. And that was only on a $50 deposit. Can you imagine what it will be like if (for example) 10,000 people order systems and Gamestop only gets 5,000?
 
New low? I think they're just adding to their lowest point. Regardless how much market share they have it is only based on the uninformed consumer who hasn't got a clue about video games. Granted I know even die hard gamers like the ones on the forums occasionally gives them business, but usually most try to avoid them at all cost. You thought the PS3 launch violence was bad, I see the violence/backlash from this possibly making major news shows. Leave it to Nintendo to make it look like they are taking a step forward only to screw the consumer and fall back down. Do they not know that before the Wii they were third to the crown. You would think they would make positive strides to make it to at least second and maybe back to top dog.
 
[quote name='Lord_Kefka'] 1) Nintendo really is sitting on a production backlog of these things and expects to ship Gamestop more than the three at a time that I see come in.

[/quote] it really does makes you wonder.. [quote name='ddrlenz']I suppose preordering a game is kinda the same concept...but I see where you're going with that.

[/quote] thats true but not a whole lot of people pre-order them and pre-pay them in full. they love the pre-order idea because it is technically buying something already. the same with retailers who loves it when you purchase a gift card because it is counted as sale.
 
Production backlog? Nintendo said that they can now build 1.8 million Wii's a month. Nintendo sold nearly 1 million Wii's in the USA alone in November. I guess they are holding back some Wii's if they decided not to sell any elsewhere in the world.:roll:

From what I read about this deal, GS is the only major retailer who has a system in place that could do this pre-buy. They will only sell enough certificates to match Nintendo's production and they will have them all by the end of January. Yea, I would hate having GS hold my money, but it's better than buying a Wii off a ebay or craigslist jerk-off for $400.
 
leave it to people to always take the negative on this crap.

I actually see this is a good idea. For the most part, imagine all the effort the average consumer goes into trying a find a wii and cant. The gas money, the time invested, the frustration. They can pay full price, avoid high costs of buying a Wii on the black market, and take the stress out of finding one.

To be promised a Wii is a really good thing for most people. How often does target, CC and best buy get wii's really, once or twice a month? People would just be putting the money they already have saved on a wii rite away.

And as for gamestop getting interest holding on to your money...on no, they will get 1/12 of 5% interest in a savings account for the month they hold your money on the rollover....maybe what...a whoping dollar 75 - ish. Big deal.
 
[quote name='thingsfallnapart']leave it to people to always take the negative on this crap.

I actually see this is a good idea. For the most part, imagine all the effort the average consumer goes into trying a find a wii and cant. The gas money, the time invested, the frustration. They can pay full price, avoid high costs of buying a Wii on the black market, and take the stress out of finding one.

To be promised a Wii is a really good thing for most people. How often does target, CC and best buy get wii's really, once or twice a month? People would just be putting the money they already have saved on a wii rite away.

And as for gamestop getting interest holding on to your money...on no, they will get 1/12 of 5% interest in a savings account for the month they hold your money on the rollover....maybe what...a whoping dollar 75 - ish. Big deal.[/QUOTE]

Wait a minute.

This is the same thing that happened with the 360 2 years ago, which was an abysmal failure on all fronts, since the results were basically "hey if you didn't get one on launch day, expect to wait 4 months."

So there's absolutely no good precedent in place here that is going to make gamers think this is a good idea.

I think it boiled down to Gamestop realizing they could make some cash on the interest in the short run, so they called up Nintendo and said to do it. Nintendo sees it as good because it's sort of a treaty with the American consumer public - a "hey we know how hard it is so let's agree on something now." Which is kind of good in the sense that it shows they acknowledge the problem, but bad because....well, everyone thought the sales would have stalled by now, and since they haven't, it looks like we could end up in the above scenario of people getting screwed out of systems because Nintendo is playing catch-up.

Nintendo is probably also seeing this as a way to counter all the comments from people like Sony execs who are gloating about how "this shortage is great - people will pick up a PS3 instead." Which might have some legitimacy, but I recall Sega making similar comments when the PS2 had shortages when the Dreamcast was still alive.

The point is that it looks good on paper. In execution, in practice, and compared to historical precedent, however, it falls flat on its face.

I'm just bracing myself to see a lot of negative "shortages remain because stock is now crippled from the stupid rain check program" announcements in about a month.
 
Some of this is predicated on Nintendo believing that the shortage will be resolved early next year. In that case, the chance of epic failures in this program are slightly less.

I'm slowly starting to believe it, barring a Wii Fit explosion.

1.8M consoles worldwide is a shit ton of consoles. I've seen PS2 shipment numbers broken down by quarter over the entire lifespan, and it was only that high on a monthly basis a handful of times.

Yes, they are tracking ahead of the PS2 in the same time frame, but still.
 
[quote name='Snake2715']Worldwide production and sales for US was 980k in November alone. And I dont think monthly production was 1.8 million I thought it was closer to 1 million.[/quote]

According to NPD, that 980k was US sales. They must be producing much more than that to supply the rest of the world.
 
[quote name='Strell']Wait a minute.

This is the same thing that happened with the 360 2 years ago, which was an abysmal failure on all fronts, since the results were basically "hey if you didn't get one on launch day, expect to wait 4 months."

So there's absolutely no good precedent in place here that is going to make gamers think this is a good idea.

I think it boiled down to Gamestop realizing they could make some cash on the interest in the short run, so they called up Nintendo and said to do it. Nintendo sees it as good because it's sort of a treaty with the American consumer public - a "hey we know how hard it is so let's agree on something now." Which is kind of good in the sense that it shows they acknowledge the problem, but bad because....well, everyone thought the sales would have stalled by now, and since they haven't, it looks like we could end up in the above scenario of people getting screwed out of systems because Nintendo is playing catch-up.

Nintendo is probably also seeing this as a way to counter all the comments from people like Sony execs who are gloating about how "this shortage is great - people will pick up a PS3 instead." Which might have some legitimacy, but I recall Sega making similar comments when the PS2 had shortages when the Dreamcast was still alive.

The point is that it looks good on paper. In execution, in practice, and compared to historical precedent, however, it falls flat on its face.

I'm just bracing myself to see a lot of negative "shortages remain because stock is now crippled from the stupid rain check program" announcements in about a month.[/QUOTE]

The problem, for the most part, is this shortage isn't completely driven by gamers, rather desperate parents and scalpers ( who think they can make a fast buck.)

In retrospect, I bet if you took scalpers out of the equation, the percentage of desperate parents would drop big time - thus creating more happy gamers who could probably buy a console without having to take off work or pay massive amounts of doe to acquire one.
 
Well I agee about the scalpers, and there's reasonable....reason to think this program could help combat that.

The desperate parents thing is a little different, of course. Interesting point that they are directly linked. That would be fun to look at more closely if we had the capabilities to do so.
 
[quote name='Strell']Well I agee about the scalpers, and there's reasonable....reason to think this program could help combat that.

The desperate parents thing is a little different, of course. Interesting point that they are directly linked. That would be fun to look at more closely if we had the capabilities to do so.[/QUOTE]

I look at it like taking a slice of the pie. If the scalpers didn't exist because of higher supply/higher SRP of the console (to make the scalpers profit margin much lower and drive them away) then the slice of the pie occupied by the scalpers would be overtaken by the desperate parents, thus allowing more gamers to acquire a wii. Baring of course, that the number of desperate parents don't push the supply numbers alone making the reduction of scalpers basically useless.

I think the higher SRP of the console would be a good idea. I know nintendo cant raise it , as it would make them look bad in the long run. I think they can make different add on packs to help them profit instead of other companies (I.E. gamestops online bundles.) who put together these bundles themselves. Maybe a Wii Party bundle with mario party and an extra wii mote, or a metroid prime "action bundle."

Having a higher price ceiling would take scalpers out of the mix and give more options to the people who really want one, while putting more of the profit that can be in nintendos hands instead of the scalpers.
 
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