Editorial: It shouldn’t be this hard to buy a Mini NES in Australia

The entire experience around buying the NES Classic Mini in Australia has been a total stuff up nearly every way you look at it.

Since it was revealed it’s been a complete mess to even try and buy one of these things. “Why not just preorder,” you say “and avoid all this undue stress?” The reason is threefold – firstly, no one should have to preorder a system blind. At the point when preorders went live we knew nothing about how the console worked, if it had any visual modes or how the emulation would be. If people bought one and it ended up with the same craptacular emulation the Wii U has? Not happy.

Secondly, not everyone can afford to drop potentially full amount in one go, I’ve seen numerous tweets and Facebook messages with this reasoning.

The third, and perhaps the most important reason, is that it’s been a mess to actually get a preorder in or buy one on release. EB Games’ website crashed twice because of it – at one point they gave up and said ‘come back another day’. JB Hi-Fi had preorders at some point, and other retailers like Big W and Target – well that’s where the fun really begins. Big W’s site this morning crashed and their stores had limited stock. At the time of writing the Big W site was still down.

Target however, at least had a line system at some stores and it seems most people got theirs this way. However, let me tell you about my experience this morning: 7am I arrived at the shops (an hour before they open) and there’s three guys at the door. We chat and banter and just before 8am when the centre opens there’s at least 20 of us – the centre opens and everyone gets smashed through the doors and stampedes to Target.Well most of us, I’m not running to the store entry – surely Target will have a line just like I’ve seen on Twitter all morning.

Nope! People who were in line before me don’t get there first. Mums who are lining up for their kids, Grandparents who have been roped in – all miss out. So the next hurdle – the Target doors slowly roll up, people throw themselves under it and run to the back of the store. The manager clearly doesn’t care as three or more of her staff buy the system and controllers in front of everyone. The PA exclaims ‘we only have 10 in stock’, they’re lying they had more – but the staff bought a chunk of them. The manager who clearly hasn’t followed directives from head office claims its ‘first come first serve’ and people who had been waiting, the slower people, the ones who can’t throw themselves under a door or push old people out of the way – they don’t get theirs. This is the type of system that Target allow to happen, that Nintendo allow to happen because they continually, either deliberately or through poor decisions, under-order everything.

The way this product has been managed doesn’t promote a fair or equal opportunity for people to have the chance to purchase a product with mass appeal. This is completely different to pre ordering a ‘limited edition’ cheap plastic toy for a niche market. The Mini NES represents a major part of Nintendo’s history and its fans’ lives.

The way this product has been managed doesn’t promote a fair or equal opportunity for people to have the chance to purchase a product with mass appeal. This is completely different to pre ordering a ‘limited edition’ cheap plastic toy for a niche market. The Mini NES represents a major part of Nintendo’s history and its fans’ lives.

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This isn’t a story just about my experience, but it’s at the point where I’ve had enough – fans have had enough and have been telling me their stories and something has to be said. That’s why I lined up this morning, because if I line up and get screwed over just like regular joe public then least I know that’s how it is for the general punter.

Less than a decade ago Nintendo were sitting pretty with the Wii, now after the failure of the Wii U their back is against the wall and people buying their products right now are the dedicated fans who stick around during the tough times. It’s these fans that they’re treating this way. Whatever needs to be done to sort this out needs to be done at a higher level: more analysis on stock anticipation and allocation…  I don’t know the answer,  that’s not my job.

My job is to be the voice of the people – we’re not happy Nintendo, sort it out or risk losing your fans.