When Nintendo released a modern remake of its Nintendo Entertainment System game console last holiday season, lots of people went home disappointed, because the game company didn’t make enough to satisfy the huge demand.
With the company about to release a similar remake of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, history seems to be repeating itself.
After Best Buy and Amazon opened up preorders for the new SNES Classic Edition Monday night, they sold out almost immediately. On Tuesday, Target and other retailers opened up their own preorders, only to close them within minutes amid crushing demand.
To get a sense of this new Nintendo madness, I swung by a GameStop in downtown San Francisco, right in the heart of the city’s tech scene. We had heard through the grapevine that most GameStop stores will only be getting 10 to 16 SNES Classic consoles. I’ve reached out to the retailer to confirm, but assuming those numbers are accurate, a lot of these folks, who were waiting outside the GameStop on Tuesday morning to pre-order a console, likely went home empty-handed:
At the time of our visit, around 11 a.m. PT, the store’s computer system hadn’t yet been updated to accept SNES Classic preorders, an employee told me. Reports on Twitter later indicated that the number of people in the line reached as high as 45. According to those reports, the store actually had 36 consoles available for pre-order.
It was a similar scene in New York City, where Business Insider’s Chris Snyder hit a GameStop near our offices and found another line:
The SNES Classic Edition is a miniature, modernized version of the classic console that will come with 20 all-time classic games built in. It’s priced at $ 80 and is slated to hit store shelves on September 29th.
In contrast to what Nintendo fans found this week, Nintendo had promised that the SNES Classic would be easier to find than its predecessor was last year.
“We aren’t providing specific numbers, but we will produce significantly more units of Super NES Classic Edition than we did of NES Classic Edition,” Nintendo told Business Insider back in June.
We’ve reached out to Nintendo to see if there’s an update on the SNES Classic’s availability. In the meanwhile, the best solution is to just plug away and try to find a retailer that will take your preorder.
Ultimately, though, it’s a frustrating situation. To quote our own Chris Snyder, who’s still searching for a unit to call his own: “Can’t they just make more?”
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