The SNES Classic is the very highly-anticipated classic console remake from Nintendo, coming pre-loaded with 21 classic SNES games for nostalgia-enthusiasts everywhere. The SNES Classic is forecasted to sell even better than the previously-released NES Classic of last year, which suffered from supply issues and caused many gamers to miss out on the high-demand console. It looked like Nintendo was preparing to make things right this time around, with reports of extra production of the new consoles, before things started to look more familiar, first with round of cancelled pre-orders in the UK, and then a wave of bungles and errors earlier this week with a number of retailers dropping the ball on bizarrely-timed pre-orders.
The night of Monday August 21, Best Buy and Amazon launched their pre-orders with no real announcement or warning, taking many by surprise. Due to the excess demand, these orders were quickly scooped up by consumers lucky enough to be browsing late at night, and they were soon all sold out.
Walmart, another of the approved SNES Classic retailers, opened their pre-orders just hours later at 10am PST, again with no accompanying announcement or scheduling. These pre-orders sold out tremendously fast as well, frustrating more Nintendo fans. The same occurred for Target, the 4th of the 6 store options players had to choose from.
GameStop announced that players could physically swing by their store to pick up pre-orders in person, leading to a mad rush of hopefuls to many of the store’s locations. Long lines formed quickly, and again, many players were unable to secure their future ownership of one of these very limited consoles.
The last hope for many, Toys ‘R’ Us, followed the chaos with a number of tweet replies to curious customers, all stating that the store would NOT be offering any pre-orders for the console, and that the console will simply be available for purchase in stores starting September 29th, the console’s official release date.
And, well, that’s where we are now. Many members of the community are expressing frustration with Nintendo for seemingly learning nothing from their previous mistakes, and once again under-supplying new console remake that is in extremely high demand. If you didn’t manage to grab a pre-order, some special “bundle” options for the console are still available online from certain retailers, albeit for a much more inflated price. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until launch day on September 29th, and fight the crowds to grab one in person from one of the available retailers.