According to this story the Wii U won’t be available for pre-order and apparently not available on the store for some time. Not only that but Amazon isn’t carrying the 3DS anymore and isn’t carrying the 3DS XL, either. And apparently neither Nintendo or Amazon are forthcoming about what’s going on here. Think anybody could illuminate what’s going on here?
The only reason would be is if Amazon found selling Nintendo hardware to not be profitable. What would cause that? I’d say the heavy amount of returns. NOA shrugs it off while people go back to the seller. And Amazon can’t get NOA to take it back.
Amazon has always done a tremendous amount of volume with Nintendo hardware sales. The only reason why they wouldn’t sell it is if there was a financial reason not to.
“Why don’t other online distributors complain?” I don’t think they do a sixteenth of the volume Amazon was doing.
“But about the PS3 and Xbox 360?” Microsoft and Sony seem more willing to eat those costs.
This isn’t 2006 Nintendo where you’d have a hardware problem and the company would be like “Oh noes. You poor thing…” 2012 Nintendo is a company in financial decline and, the pattern with most companies, the first thing that gets hit is the returns and customer service.
People on the Gaming Message Forums say, “I am a gamer. The company’s financial statement matters not to me.” But the change in the company’s financial statement alters the behavior of the company. The Nintendo of 2012 will be less pleasant than the Nintendo of 2006 or 2000.
If you want to talk about failure rates, what do you think is going to happen with the GamePads. I KNOW that SOME of those are going to fail. And Nintendo offers NO way to replace them. Would YOU stock such a product?
