For gaming fans, releasing a console can be a stressful time. There is a battle between bots and DDO’s level of internet traffic to secure pre-orders at random and insane times, and/or you need to prepare to camp outside of the retailer. This experience is largely rotten due to scalpers who buy items with the intention of reselling them with enormous markup.
Veteran veterans are used to these dynamics, but this experience doesn’t have to be like this. Suitable Case: Nintendo has developed a highly effective switch 2 prevention strategy. Except that Nintendo is currently only deploying in Japan.
Nintendo announced its initiative on its website on Tuesday. Japanese companies will work with companies like Mercari to “prevent fraudulent lists” on Switch 2. In fact, these websites will completely prevent the Switch 2 listing even after the console is officially launched. All this is done to prevent “confusion” among consumers.
Meanwhile, loading eBay into the US makes it easy to find a list of Switch 2s for a few hundred dollars more than retail prices. disappointing.
We outside of Japan are still at the mercy of greedy resellers, but Nintendo didn’t completely rule us out in the cold. In addition to regular pre-orders, the company has also launched a program that allows fans to reserve consoles only if certain requirements are met. Users were required to have at least a yearly Nintendo online membership, recording at least 50 hours of gameplay on the console and opting in to share data gameplay data with Nintendo.
It was a good idea to reward true blue fans, but this measure didn’t solve the whole problem. Witness, Nintendo had to issue an apology for the number of people who couldn’t secure pre-orders this way. However, at least those people get caught up in their next pre-order.
It doesn’t have to be like this. For example, in the music industry, some artists can choose to release tickets that cannot be sold again on Ticketmaster, or choose a measure that limits the price of resale tickets. That’s basically what Nintendo does in Japan. Hopefully it’s only a matter of time before Nintendo brings an approach to other parts of the world.