Holland's Wii launch marred by false promises |
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Tipster Grannd sends us some sad news from the Netherlands about the Wii launch in The Hague. A less than stellar delivery to Gameshop, one of the game stores there, has prompted the store to not sell any Wii units or accessories, at least for now. While Gameshop's website is in Dutch, Grannd manage to give us the gist of the issue. Nintendo seems to have promised the Gameshop stores 600 units, and around 400 pre-orders were made by people based on that assumption.
The problem comes when, as Grannd tells us, "a week ahead of the release, Nintendo told Gameshop that they could only deliver 10 (!) Wiis". Since Gameshop has three stores, that means three units per store, and 390 customers feeling very annoyed, not to mention the folks at Gameshop who'll have to work with the customer service nightmare this might entail. As a result of this, Gameshop opted not to sell their units, nor offer any accessories or games for the console.
While some of you might be thinking that something of that sort is unfair for the store to do, you can also see why they're doing this temporary boycott of sorts. Who wouldn't be rather annoyed at only finding out a week before launch of something like this? Perhaps the problems of next-gen launches have taught them the value of sticking to their guns, even if their own customers don't agree with the methods. Waiting for Nintendo to actually send them the goods they asked for seems safer than fans fighting over a console, at least.
If any of you folks know Dutch, we'd appreciate a translation of Gameshop's statement at the source link. Translation sites can only do so much, you know.
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Comments [refresh]
if that happens with Australia, I'll be PISSED
Translation dutch article:
The Gameshop won't sell te Wii.
The Gameshop has made a hard decision not to sell te Nintendo Wii, the games and the accesoires. Why? It's explained further down the page.
Over the last 2 years, 401 enthusiastic customers have pre-orderd the Wii at our shop.To sell a Wii to everybody who pre-orderd it, we had orderd 600 Wii's at Nintendo. Today (wednesday) we've heard that we are garanteed of 10 Wii's, instead of the orderd 600 pieces.
This wil have a consequence, about 390 people won't get a Wii at the launch.
We've tried to get things done, but Nintendo won't cooperate and we are very disapointed!
We are in a situation that is hard to handle and were we need to disapoint our customers, blaming Nintendo.
This is the reason why we chose not to sell the Wii, the games and the accessoires.
We are very sorry for this situation and we hope that our customers can understand it.
I agree. I'll be super-pissed, infact.
Those 390 disappointed Dutch customers might want to check out the following "guaranteed" pre-order locations:
www.bartsmit.nl
www.intertoys.nl
www.nl.bol.com
www.game247.nl
First 2 are pick-up stores, last two will ship it to you in 1 day so you'll have it on december 9th.
*waiting anxiously for his 2 pre-orders*
Bol.com doesn't garantuee too:
Let op: de beschikbaarheid van dit product is zeer onzeker. We zullen beschikbare producten uitleveren op basis van binnenkomst van orders en levering op dag van release kunnen we voor dit product NIET garanderen.
Which means:
The availability of this product is very uncertain. We will deliver available products on basis of orders, delivery on the day of release is NOT garantueed.
Also, www.nedgame.nl has thesame statement, they used to guarantee too, even with the 360 they had a gauranteed delivery.
Until now.
I work at the Media-Markt in the Hague, the biggest electronics store at the Hague. We also get only 20 wii's.
We get 500.000 customers a week, and we get only 20 wii's, Nintendo's failing holland. BIGTIME
I know I'll be camping at the Media Markt then
I called them, they told me first come first served...
Holland has allways been like this when it comes to console launches, and especially Nintendo..... Nintendo Benelux really sucks ass ~ ____~);;;' Only caring about money and selling big parties to big stores like Media Markt (Biggest european electronics store) and Bart Smit (Biggest toy frenchise in holland). Nintendo doesnt note the dedicated gameshops, where most hardcore games go to, but theyre aiming for the mass public. its the case. NINTENDO DOESNT CARE ABOUT PEOPLE AND GAMERS AT ALL. THEY CARE ABOUT MAKING MONEY, AND ALOT OF.
and those were my $250 x\/
I just called the customer service en they said that when you order now online you're 99% sure that you will get the wii on 8 december at your home so it isn't only a pickup store. So I just ordered it by bartmit.com so I don't have to camp in front of the mediamarkt. :)
I've heard the mediamarkt got lot's of Wii's
(It wasn't a problem for me, I'm number 1 on the pre-order list from Musicstore
But if I was one of those unlucky person's I should pre-order it in different store's
(and then if you got a Wii cancel the other orders ;) )
huh? so that company 'had ordered' 600 units? and they have 3 stores? - so they were planning for something like 200 units per store? - is that a joke?
here in toronto the biggest stores got something like 60-70 units _max_, a big chain electronics store would get 30-40, and smaller (but again, from a large chain - like EB) game stores ~ 10-20. and here come some company with 3 stores and the bold claims that they had 'ordered 600 units' per 3 stores - do these guys fall from mars? apparently they've never done any console launch sales before otherwise they'd have known you don't 'oreder N hundreds' units from the vendor for launch and demand they meet the order, not when you're some small/average store. and even less so you take preorders for 400 units.
..'nintendo won't cooperate'. morons.
Hmm.. Are you like, blaming the store now, for what happened?
Anyway, Gameshop isn't just any cornershop, for a small country like the Netherlands three dedicated gameshopes is acceptable. Holland isn't a big country, like Canada, so you don't have to go far to reach one.
And besides - they did have 400 preorders for Wii (200 for Xbox 360 (which were available) and 300 for PSP), which says something about them. And that leaves just 67 Wii's in stock per store, which in a stuffed country as the Netherlands isn't weird at all.
Trust me, I live there. ;)
Holland is the No. 1 populated country in the world
that mean's lot's of people on little space and also lot's of customer's for just one store
(sorry for my bad english.... I believe it's dense populated or something :P)
The bypasser guy above is right; how in the hell they expected to get all of those 600 units at launch (or even anywhere close to it) is beyond me. I don't know how Nintendo Benelux operates, but from what I've read at least most smaller European markets have been notified a while ago that they may be getting a limited amount of consoles at launch due to high demand. This is to be expected with new console hardware, especially one with a semi-simultaneous worldwide launch (hell, look at PS3, which is struggling even without delivering to Europe at all this year!), and honestly in my opinion professional console stores should be aware of this fact and not take 400 preorders, at least until it's crystal clear that the amount they've asked is going to get delivered. If the 600 consoles we're indeed 100% promised to them on launch day, then it's a different story..