If trusted Japanese blog Sinobi is to be believed, Nintendo won’t be shipping many copies of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D in Japan. The initial shipment batch is expected to be “extremely small” and stock availability will be limited for all retailers. To make matters worse, Nintendo is not taking game orders from any store.
For such a legendary franchise, this sounds odd, doesn’t it? One theory is that Nintendo is looking to avoid a quick price reduction, similar to the situation with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. That title landed in bargain bins not too long after release.
3DS has a very small install base in Japan. Much of the software already sent to retailers is not selling. When many people bought a 3DS, they did not buy any software. Also, many, many 3DS systems have been returned (so the ‘sold amount’ in Japan is not the actual install base).
Retailers just don’t want to buy 3DS software at this point. Who can blame them?
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