Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked by an investor during the latest General Meeting of Shareholders if the company is considering ways to prevent scalpers from buying up stock of the next console and reselling it at inflated prices on eBay etc. Furukawa said that their plan is to produce and ship as many units as possible to meet consumers need. Once they are confident that goal is possible, then they will consider how best to avoid bulk buying and reselling. Sony did something similar with the PlayStation 5 after launch as they invited users to purchase a console from their online store. Here’s what Mr. Furukawa said:
“With regard to resale measures when launching new hardware, we recognise that the most important thing is to first produce and ship in numbers that can meet customer demand. We will then consider whether there are any other possible measures that can be taken.”
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa
Sony was supposedly gonna make it so customers can only purchase one PS5 at a time from local retailers so scalpers can’t purchase the entire stock and mass produce the PS5. All i can say is “Good luck” getting the Switch successor if it’s anything like the PS5. I never had as much trouble getting a new system as i did getting a PS5.
In Sonys defense, the stock was actually really low, so we couldn’t really tell if it actually worked or not.
One thing they can do is send out emails to people who already own a Switch with an online queue. The only reason why I got a PS5 when it was still very scarce was because I got an invite.
Yeah that could work out for people who already own a Switch honestly. But it’s really something that they should do if that is what they expected to do.
There should be a way for them to take care of their most loyal customers. For instance, my family has two switch systems, multiple pro controllers and over 100 physical games on the switch alone. But we also purchased a Wii U along with many games, a Wii with many games, A GameCube with many games, DS, 3DS, GBA and so on. Along with probably 150+ amiibo and other merch. Point is that we have dropped a fortune on their products over the years and so customers like us and others who are just as loyal should be getting first crack at a newly released console. We shouldn’t have to compete with someone new to Nintendo or someone who has bought consoles, but only a few games.
They could actually do this by seeing who has had an Nintendo account the longest and let them have first dibs to the email invites.
I say they give first dibs to anyone who was 3DS embassador. 😅
I think the 3DS and Switch lets you use the same account, right? The ambassadors would definitely get those first dibs.
Yeah this might be possible but this is something that they could try out base on consumers needs.
They can try but there will still be scalping no matter what efforts they do to mitigate it. Good on them to at least try.
I’m all for this, but unless they go the Steam Deck route, how are they actually planning on doing this?
Just make it so impossibly rare… no one on earth can even get a system.
Boom, not even scalpers have any.
Problem solved.
Number 1 most important thing they can do is have an abundance of these on shelves come launch day, as Furukawa says. Beyond that, if they can give some sort of priority to long-term Switch/Nintendo console owners that would be great. But again, just get these things on the shelves.
Maybe get the amiibo scalping under control first AND THEN I might have hope in them controlling console scalping. If they can’t fix it with something a ton cheaper & far easier to mass produce, why should we expect the same on the more expensive & not as mass produced item?