VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

[redblaze57]

My favorite system is the PS2, and I currently have 102 games for it, not including doubles, sports games I bought to use as box donors, and stuff I bought to trade or sell on eBay.

On a slightly related note, I'm out of shelf space. I need to figure out whether I'm going to make more shelves for the bookshelf I currently use or buy another.

I downloaded a VR tour of the solar system which also has some comparisons to other stars.  I have to say it was very impressive as I was whisked through space.

That sounds like it might be fun on controlled substances, lol.

Build this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXTkD7Rq2jU

I built one and it works and I like it. Works great for CD cases. And if I can build it, anyone can!

Thanks! My friend's dad was a carpenter, so putting something like that together shouldn't be a problem.

I actually just had an argument with a guy about this the other day.  He said he IS a carpenter and argued with me that there is no way to do that for under $20, that the materials would cost $300 alone to make that shelf.  And about 30 people jumped on the bandwagon and started agreeing with him.  Maybe they are secretly Amazon affiliates trying to convince folks to buy $150 shelving units from amazon to get store credit.

Heads up it appears that Amazon Prime members now get 20% off Video game preorders.

The other side of this, If you purchase Gamers Club Unlocked at Best Buy ($30 for 2 years, significantly cheaper than Prime), you get 20% of all new games at Best Buy, pre-order or not.  You also get 10% off used titles (a la Gamestop PUR)

That was mainly for those who already have Prime

[ignition365]

That was mainly for those who already have Prime

For sure, but I've been seeing so many people talking about how great this is and how they are going to sign up for Prime just for this... and I'm just dumbfounded by it all.

[Warmsignal]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

[ignition365]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

My understanding is that it's not entirely Nintendo's fault.  Gamestop's policy with games like this is, if a store receives no preorders, that store requests 0 copies.  If the store receives less than a certain number of preorders, I think less than 10, they request only the preorders.  I believe there was a statement that Gamestop's entire web inventory for the title was under 500 copies.  This COULD be because the hype for the game was so low that they didn't request that many copies from Nintendo.  But yes, Nintendo probably "under" produced because they knew it would flop.  On the other hand, I know that for the first few days after release, you could buy it at almost any gamestop, it was available on Gamestop's website, and Amazon.  It wasn't until people started saying it was going to be rare that resellers (read as slickdeals and CAG) started buying up all of the single copies that stores had and threw them on ebay with $200 price tags.  Which I consider a total artificial situation.  IMO, if resellers hadn't snatched up any copies to resell, there would be copies available in stores.  As it is, the only reason a lot of people bought the game, myself included, was because I knew resellers were jumping on it and buying up every copy they could get their hands on, had resellers not done that, I would've waited to pick up the game.

Now in the case of titles that have a certain number of national preorders, it's moot and Gamestop treats it differently, requesting tons of copies (e.g. Call of Duty, GTA, etc) regardless of number of preorders.

[Warmsignal]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

My understanding is that it's not entirely Nintendo's fault.  Gamestop's policy with games like this is, if a store receives no preorders, that store requests 0 copies.  If the store receives less than a certain number of preorders, I think less than 10, they request only the preorders.  I believe there was a statement that Gamestop's entire web inventory for the title was under 500 copies.  This COULD be because the hype for the game was so low that they didn't request that many copies from Nintendo.  But yes, Nintendo probably "under" produced because they knew it would flop.  On the other hand, I know that for the first few days after release, you could buy it at almost any gamestop, it was available on Gamestop's website, and Amazon.  It wasn't until people started saying it was going to be rare that resellers (read as slickdeals and CAG) started buying up all of the single copies that stores had and threw them on ebay with $200 price tags.

Now in the case of titles that have a certain number of national preorders, it's moot and Gamestop treats it differently, requesting tons of copies (e.g. Call of Duty, GTA, etc) regardless of number of preorders.

So are you saying a game's entire retail presence depends on GameStop? From what I heard Best Buy, Walmart, etc, didn't get any at all.

[ignition365]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

My understanding is that it's not entirely Nintendo's fault.  Gamestop's policy with games like this is, if a store receives no preorders, that store requests 0 copies.  If the store receives less than a certain number of preorders, I think less than 10, they request only the preorders.  I believe there was a statement that Gamestop's entire web inventory for the title was under 500 copies.  This COULD be because the hype for the game was so low that they didn't request that many copies from Nintendo.  But yes, Nintendo probably "under" produced because they knew it would flop.  On the other hand, I know that for the first few days after release, you could buy it at almost any gamestop, it was available on Gamestop's website, and Amazon.  It wasn't until people started saying it was going to be rare that resellers (read as slickdeals and CAG) started buying up all of the single copies that stores had and threw them on ebay with $200 price tags.

Now in the case of titles that have a certain number of national preorders, it's moot and Gamestop treats it differently, requesting tons of copies (e.g. Call of Duty, GTA, etc) regardless of number of preorders.

So are you saying a game's entire retail presence depends on GameStop? From what I heard Best Buy, Walmart, etc, didn't get any at all.

I was specifically talking about Gamestop's policy on the matter.  But yes, Gamestop is a business, so are Best Buy and Walmart, they all have policies that dictate how many of something they request.  Very simply put, nobody cared about the game, so Walmart requested no copies.  Best Buy had the game available for preorder, I presume they had so few preorders that they didn't request ANY for the web or store after preorders.

As much as folks like to say preorders are stupid and you shouldn't give them your money before you see a review or whatever, for games like this with no hype and such, this is what happens when no one preorders.  I guarantee you, had any of those stores received tens thousands of preorders, Nintendo would've printed more copies.

[Warmsignal]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

My understanding is that it's not entirely Nintendo's fault.  Gamestop's policy with games like this is, if a store receives no preorders, that store requests 0 copies.  If the store receives less than a certain number of preorders, I think less than 10, they request only the preorders.  I believe there was a statement that Gamestop's entire web inventory for the title was under 500 copies.  This COULD be because the hype for the game was so low that they didn't request that many copies from Nintendo.  But yes, Nintendo probably "under" produced because they knew it would flop.  On the other hand, I know that for the first few days after release, you could buy it at almost any gamestop, it was available on Gamestop's website, and Amazon.  It wasn't until people started saying it was going to be rare that resellers (read as slickdeals and CAG) started buying up all of the single copies that stores had and threw them on ebay with $200 price tags.

Now in the case of titles that have a certain number of national preorders, it's moot and Gamestop treats it differently, requesting tons of copies (e.g. Call of Duty, GTA, etc) regardless of number of preorders.

So are you saying a game's entire retail presence depends on GameStop? From what I heard Best Buy, Walmart, etc, didn't get any at all.

I was specifically talking about Gamestop's policy on the matter.  But yes, Gamestop is a business, so are Best Buy and Walmart, they all have policies that dictate how many of something they request.  Very simply put, nobody cared about the game, so Walmart requested no copies.  Best Buy had the game available for preorder, I presume they had so few preorders that they didn't request ANY for the web or store after preorders.

As much as folks like to say preorders are stupid and you shouldn't give them your money before you see a review or whatever, for games like this with no hype and such, this is what happens when no one preorders.  I guarantee you, had any of those stores received tens thousands of preorders, Nintendo would've printed more copies.

I dunno, Nintendo has been known to pull the plug on anything less than stellar in reviews and cause a disproportionate supply and demand, thinking back to the DS and Wii, even with their own first party titles, and sometimes with games that receive plenty of praise, like Xenoblade Chronicles.

[ignition365]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

My understanding is that it's not entirely Nintendo's fault.  Gamestop's policy with games like this is, if a store receives no preorders, that store requests 0 copies.  If the store receives less than a certain number of preorders, I think less than 10, they request only the preorders.  I believe there was a statement that Gamestop's entire web inventory for the title was under 500 copies.  This COULD be because the hype for the game was so low that they didn't request that many copies from Nintendo.  But yes, Nintendo probably "under" produced because they knew it would flop.  On the other hand, I know that for the first few days after release, you could buy it at almost any gamestop, it was available on Gamestop's website, and Amazon.  It wasn't until people started saying it was going to be rare that resellers (read as slickdeals and CAG) started buying up all of the single copies that stores had and threw them on ebay with $200 price tags.

Now in the case of titles that have a certain number of national preorders, it's moot and Gamestop treats it differently, requesting tons of copies (e.g. Call of Duty, GTA, etc) regardless of number of preorders.

So are you saying a game's entire retail presence depends on GameStop? From what I heard Best Buy, Walmart, etc, didn't get any at all.

I was specifically talking about Gamestop's policy on the matter.  But yes, Gamestop is a business, so are Best Buy and Walmart, they all have policies that dictate how many of something they request.  Very simply put, nobody cared about the game, so Walmart requested no copies.  Best Buy had the game available for preorder, I presume they had so few preorders that they didn't request ANY for the web or store after preorders.

As much as folks like to say preorders are stupid and you shouldn't give them your money before you see a review or whatever, for games like this with no hype and such, this is what happens when no one preorders.  I guarantee you, had any of those stores received tens thousands of preorders, Nintendo would've printed more copies.

I dunno, Nintendo has been known to pull the plug on anything less than stellar in reviews and cause a disproportionate supply and demand, thinking back to the DS and Wii, even with their own first party titles, and sometimes with games that receive plenty of praise, like Xenoblade Chronicles.

This may be true, but in those cases, especially Xenoblade, if the preorder numbers weren't high, they didn't produce high.  One could imply that it's Nintendo's fault, but one could also imply that Nintendo produced as many copies as the market trends showed that they needed to produce.  There are generally tons of cases where titles get low production numbers, but since the demand actually is low, it's fine.

Xenoblade chronicles however, market presence was EXPLICITLY controlled by Gamestop as Gamestop was the sole distributor in the US.  Which allowed Gamestop to reprint the game later and sell them as used copies.

[Warmsignal]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

My understanding is that it's not entirely Nintendo's fault.  Gamestop's policy with games like this is, if a store receives no preorders, that store requests 0 copies.  If the store receives less than a certain number of preorders, I think less than 10, they request only the preorders.  I believe there was a statement that Gamestop's entire web inventory for the title was under 500 copies.  This COULD be because the hype for the game was so low that they didn't request that many copies from Nintendo.  But yes, Nintendo probably "under" produced because they knew it would flop.  On the other hand, I know that for the first few days after release, you could buy it at almost any gamestop, it was available on Gamestop's website, and Amazon.  It wasn't until people started saying it was going to be rare that resellers (read as slickdeals and CAG) started buying up all of the single copies that stores had and threw them on ebay with $200 price tags.

Now in the case of titles that have a certain number of national preorders, it's moot and Gamestop treats it differently, requesting tons of copies (e.g. Call of Duty, GTA, etc) regardless of number of preorders.

So are you saying a game's entire retail presence depends on GameStop? From what I heard Best Buy, Walmart, etc, didn't get any at all.

I was specifically talking about Gamestop's policy on the matter.  But yes, Gamestop is a business, so are Best Buy and Walmart, they all have policies that dictate how many of something they request.  Very simply put, nobody cared about the game, so Walmart requested no copies.  Best Buy had the game available for preorder, I presume they had so few preorders that they didn't request ANY for the web or store after preorders.

As much as folks like to say preorders are stupid and you shouldn't give them your money before you see a review or whatever, for games like this with no hype and such, this is what happens when no one preorders.  I guarantee you, had any of those stores received tens thousands of preorders, Nintendo would've printed more copies.

I dunno, Nintendo has been known to pull the plug on anything less than stellar in reviews and cause a disproportionate supply and demand, thinking back to the DS and Wii, even with their own first party titles, and sometimes with games that receive plenty of praise, like Xenoblade Chronicles.

This may be true, but in those cases, especially Xenoblade, if the preorder numbers weren't high, they didn't produce high.  One could imply that it's Nintendo's fault, but one could also imply that Nintendo produced as many copies as the market trends showed that they needed to produce.  There are generally tons of cases where titles get low production numbers, but since the demand actually is low, it's fine.

Xenoblade chronicles however, market presence was EXPLICITLY controlled by Gamestop as Gamestop was the sole distributor in the US.  Which allowed Gamestop to reprint the game later and sell them as used copies.

They could have easily supplied GameStop with another print run, but that's the thing, Nintendo rarely does second print runs if it's not a runaway hit. I remember how mind blowing it was when I discovered that they'd actually done a small reprint of Super Princess Peach and Mario & Luigi Partners In Time just for Best Buy, sometime in late 2009 - early 2010. There was never any such shortage with Bowser's Inside Story and not surprisingly, that game received a lot more critical praise.

[ignition365]

So, I know Devil's Third was "bad", but it's still pretty crappy that Nintendo did not even supply enough copies to meet the small demand. Not even enough to have at least one copy at a store in every region? Still, it doesn't surprise me that Nintendo of all companies would do this.

Never would have thought I would need to pre-order the game to have a chance at getting it. But honestly, it's just another cruddy game so I'm fine with not having it.

My understanding is that it's not entirely Nintendo's fault.  Gamestop's policy with games like this is, if a store receives no preorders, that store requests 0 copies.  If the store receives less than a certain number of preorders, I think less than 10, they request only the preorders.  I believe there was a statement that Gamestop's entire web inventory for the title was under 500 copies.  This COULD be because the hype for the game was so low that they didn't request that many copies from Nintendo.  But yes, Nintendo probably "under" produced because they knew it would flop.  On the other hand, I know that for the first few days after release, you could buy it at almost any gamestop, it was available on Gamestop's website, and Amazon.  It wasn't until people started saying it was going to be rare that resellers (read as slickdeals and CAG) started buying up all of the single copies that stores had and threw them on ebay with $200 price tags.

Now in the case of titles that have a certain number of national preorders, it's moot and Gamestop treats it differently, requesting tons of copies (e.g. Call of Duty, GTA, etc) regardless of number of preorders.

So are you saying a game's entire retail presence depends on GameStop? From what I heard Best Buy, Walmart, etc, didn't get any at all.

I was specifically talking about Gamestop's policy on the matter.  But yes, Gamestop is a business, so are Best Buy and Walmart, they all have policies that dictate how many of something they request.  Very simply put, nobody cared about the game, so Walmart requested no copies.  Best Buy had the game available for preorder, I presume they had so few preorders that they didn't request ANY for the web or store after preorders.

As much as folks like to say preorders are stupid and you shouldn't give them your money before you see a review or whatever, for games like this with no hype and such, this is what happens when no one preorders.  I guarantee you, had any of those stores received tens thousands of preorders, Nintendo would've printed more copies.

I dunno, Nintendo has been known to pull the plug on anything less than stellar in reviews and cause a disproportionate supply and demand, thinking back to the DS and Wii, even with their own first party titles, and sometimes with games that receive plenty of praise, like Xenoblade Chronicles.

This may be true, but in those cases, especially Xenoblade, if the preorder numbers weren't high, they didn't produce high.  One could imply that it's Nintendo's fault, but one could also imply that Nintendo produced as many copies as the market trends showed that they needed to produce.  There are generally tons of cases where titles get low production numbers, but since the demand actually is low, it's fine.

Xenoblade chronicles however, market presence was EXPLICITLY controlled by Gamestop as Gamestop was the sole distributor in the US.  Which allowed Gamestop to reprint the game later and sell them as used copies.

They could have easily supplied GameStop with another print run, but that's the thing, Nintendo rarely does second print runs if it's not a runaway hit. I remember how mind blowing it was when I discovered that they'd actually done a small reprint of Super Princess Peach and Mario & Luigi Partners In Time just for Best Buy, sometime in late 2009 - early 2010. There was never any such shortage with Bowser's Inside Story and not surprisingly, that game received a lot more critical praise.

Right, but that might not be entirely Nintendo's fault.  Best Buy got those reprints, I would presume one of 2 things occurred.  Either Best Buy requested copies of the games and nintendo obliged, or Nintendo made more and Best Buy made a deal to get all of the reprints over other retailers, where Nintendo didn't print more copies until some deal was in place to guarantee all copies go somewhere.  Same thing happened recently with Ocarina of Time 3D.  I'd be willing to bet one of those 2 situations occurred.

Yes, Nintendo generally follows that "Player's Choice" policy for reprints, but sometimes, and very rarely, for titles with low production numbers, Nintendo will produce a second printing.  Devil's Third probably won't get a second printing, unless it turns out like XenoBlade with Gamestop Pre-owned exclusivity to the second printing.  The game isn't good enough for nintendo to justify it, but if Gamestop offers to buy up the entire second printing for them to do it, they might do it. 

Obviously, my statements are purely speculation, but I know when I worked at Gamestop, our store got few to no copies of games with limited preorder numbers.

[Warmsignal]

It's just that to me, I would've half expected something like this to happen with Rodea, but Devil's Third? You never know what's gonna happen. Guess I need to pre-order every Wii U game to be safe, especially now that this sets the precedent for Wii U scalping.

[ignition365]

It's just that to me, I would've half expected something like this to happen with Rodea, but Devil's Third? You never know what's gonna happen. Guess I need to pre-order every Wii U game to be safe, especially now that this sets the precedent for Wii U scalping.

Rodea didn't have that problem, did it?  Plus from what I've read, the Wii version is the definitive version of that game.  So first print was the way to go regardless.

Devil's third, I expected it to be under produced with how little Nintendo was talking about the game.  But I certainly didn't expect scalpers to have a field day with it.

[fighterpilot562]

My favorite system is the PS2, and I currently have 102 games for it, not including doubles, sports games I bought to use as box donors, and stuff I bought to trade or sell on eBay.

On a slightly related note, I'm out of shelf space. I need to figure out whether I'm going to make more shelves for the bookshelf I currently use or buy another.

I downloaded a VR tour of the solar system which also has some comparisons to other stars.  I have to say it was very impressive as I was whisked through space.

That sounds like it might be fun on controlled substances, lol.

Build this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXTkD7Rq2jU

I built one and it works and I like it. Works great for CD cases. And if I can build it, anyone can!

Thanks! My friend's dad was a carpenter, so putting something like that together shouldn't be a problem.

I actually just had an argument with a guy about this the other day.  He said he IS a carpenter and argued with me that there is no way to do that for under $20, that the materials would cost $300 alone to make that shelf.  And about 30 people jumped on the bandwagon and started agreeing with him.  Maybe they are secretly Amazon affiliates trying to convince folks to buy $150 shelving units from amazon to get store credit.

$300 to make 1 shelf? dude is tripping. I got my lumber at home depo and it was cheap lol

[ignition365]

My favorite system is the PS2, and I currently have 102 games for it, not including doubles, sports games I bought to use as box donors, and stuff I bought to trade or sell on eBay.

On a slightly related note, I'm out of shelf space. I need to figure out whether I'm going to make more shelves for the bookshelf I currently use or buy another.

I downloaded a VR tour of the solar system which also has some comparisons to other stars.  I have to say it was very impressive as I was whisked through space.

That sounds like it might be fun on controlled substances, lol.

Build this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXTkD7Rq2jU

I built one and it works and I like it. Works great for CD cases. And if I can build it, anyone can!

Thanks! My friend's dad was a carpenter, so putting something like that together shouldn't be a problem.

I actually just had an argument with a guy about this the other day.  He said he IS a carpenter and argued with me that there is no way to do that for under $20, that the materials would cost $300 alone to make that shelf.  And about 30 people jumped on the bandwagon and started agreeing with him.  Maybe they are secretly Amazon affiliates trying to convince folks to buy $150 shelving units from amazon to get store credit.

$300 to make 1 shelf? dude is tripping. I got my lumber at home depo and it was cheap lol

Dude was like "Where do you live?  Where do you get your materials"  I'm like... uh... Lowe's, wood is like $3 a piece.

I think the dude must've been stuck on using the most expensive wood possible.  Mind you, if you want to paint and finish your shelving unit, of course it is going to cost more.  Me?  I used sandpaper to smooth out the edges and I think it looks fantastic and I won't get splinters.  I'm actually planning on making a few more shelves in the coming months so I can get rid of the shelving unit I bought from Best Buy.  I'll have to count again, but I know the shelves I made hold a shit ton of games.

[gf78]

It's just that to me, I would've half expected something like this to happen with Rodea, but Devil's Third? You never know what's gonna happen. Guess I need to pre-order every Wii U game to be safe, especially now that this sets the precedent for Wii U scalping.

Rodea didn't have that problem, did it?  Plus from what I've read, the Wii version is the definitive version of that game.  So first print was the way to go regardless.

Devil's third, I expected it to be under produced with how little Nintendo was talking about the game.  But I certainly didn't expect scalpers to have a field day with it.

I saw Rodea for Wii U (with bonus disc) at Target the other day.  I don't think it's rare. 

As for Devil's Third, scalpers are just continuing their trend of trying to screw you over every which way to get a game.  The video game market has become so damn cutthroat, I can't hardly stand it.  New releases of collector's editions or games that are perceived to be rare are snatched up to be resold with sky-high sticker prices on them. 

You can't touch a NES, SNES, N64 or PlayStation (one) game that's worth a crap these days for anything resembling a decent price.  Especially if it's an RPG.  Anything even remotely RPG on PlayStation is almost full, original retail price for used copies that aren't even mint. 

Nintendo doesn't help the situation out by making stingy, small runs.  Zelda games are always hot sellers, but the thing to do now is print one run and to hell with everyone else.  Want that copy of Ocarina of Time 3D?  Be ready to pay through the nose because Nintendo ain't printing any more!

It's left a sour taste in my mouth and continues to be a sore spot for me.  I don't feel like I should have to run out and preorder every friggin' game I may have an interest in because if I don't, scalpers will snatch them all up and jack the prices up to sell online.  This has also caused the domino effect that old games that are pretty common like Super Mario Bros. for the NES are being snatched up and sold for triple what they went for just a couple of years ago.  Condition and completeness be damned.