Wii Australian Launch: Harvey Norman not included |
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There is definitely at least one place - or chain of stores, in this case - in Oz where Aussies will NOT get their Wiis this Christmas: the Harvey Norman chain of consumer electronics stores. Nintendo Public Relations Manager, Vispi Bhopti, says this: They are telling the market that we are in discussions with them but this is not true. We don't like their terms or the way they operate and we are refusing to do business with them.
We're not residents of the Land Down Under ourselves so we're unaware of Harvey Norman's business practices regarding this (our Australian readers are free to instruct us on what they know about this). In the Smarthouse News article that reported this, the Managing Director of JB Hi Fi (probably a competitor to Harvey Norman) says,
“There (sic) bullying is coming back to bite them. This is one product that Harvey Norman wanted and I believe that a lot of vendors will take note of what Nintendo have done in refusing to accept Harvey Norman’s terms”.
Two of the comments to this story's appearance on Codename Revolution also noted this negative opinion of Harvey Norman, which go as far as to accuse the retailer of being "Nintendo bashers" and "absolute b*****ds." Like we said, not being Australian residents, we honestly don't know the backstory. But for some of us, this is the first time in recent memory we've seen corporate muscles being flexed like this.
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Comments [refresh]
I don't think Harvey Norman is particularly fond of Nintendo products. I don't remember ever seeing a Gamecube in their stores, and when I went to get a DS they said they didn't sell Nintendo products. As a matter of fact, I don't think they sell any Nintendo products at all (Don't quote me on that though). Which is a pity because Harvey Norman is one of the major electronics / gaming retailers in Australia. Maybe Microsoft or Sony has some sort of sponsorship deal with them?
I just checked their site. They don't sell ANY Nintendo products.
The last nintendo products i remember being in harvey norman was gbc and nintendo 64. They possibly could have had gba as well.
I still have an original promotional poster from Zelda OOT that i got from a Harvey Norman back in the day.
In New Zealand our harvey normans sell DS games, also did sell gamecubes at one stage.
I think some of the stores went a bit dry with DS games, as in they either had minimal stock or no stock at all, but now they seem to have a good amount.
I bought a Gamecube from them on day one. They didnt advertise the gamecube and only by chance did i stumble upon it and the salesman didnt recommend it cause it didnt play DVD's. They did one of the worse jobs of selling nintendo products and were the first to discontinue it 6 to 10 months into the life of GameCube. 9 australian for a gamecube , 2 games and 2 controllers. They certainly saw me comming. The Gameswizards will get my business this time. they actually know their product.
On a side note both them and Dommayne (also owned by harvey norman) are overpriced on almost everything
(The title of my post is what their advert on TV used to be when they first came into SA)
Yeah Harvey Norman are usually overpriced and have poor quality of service. I never shop there due to them generally being d***s. JB HiFi is a competitor to Harvey's in the AV department seeing as H's sell much more than AV equipment. But yeah, I fully support Nintendo Australia in their decision to keep Harvey's from stocking Wiis, that'll teach them.
yeah, cant remember ever seeing nintendo gear at harveys. wouldnt buy it there anyway as they are always overprived. i mean come on, $120 for some xbox 360 games.... i always go to jb hifi as they are always cheaper or this smaller suburban store who usually have much cheaper prices again.
oh yeah, any1 in sa should go to berlin wall. www.berlinwall.com.au thats usualy the cheapest place 4 all gaming needs here
Harvey Norman is one of the largest chain stores in Australia and they deal in everything from furniture, carpets, bathrooms, tv, sound, games, computers, etc... lots of stuff, they even started a new brand called Domayne that's a little more upmarket, but mainly because there's a large following of people that despise Harvey Norman. They've historically sold Nintendo Products, up to the gamecube and ds, but were very early to drop gamecube support, and only support the handhelds in a limited capacity.
And now due to their willingness to abandon Nintendo, they're being kept out of the circle, it needs to be bared in mind that since Sony came to market in Australia Nintendo's supprt in Oz has significantly dropped, with only now the GBA and DS bringing a resurgence to the Nintendo brand. I know a lot of people that couldn't give a crap about the gamecube but are genuinely excited about the Wii, so hopefully that crew will come around.
A lot of retailers in cluding JB Hifi, Myer, David Jones, EB, Target, Toys R Us, Big W, ***** Smith, etc... which make up the vast majority of retail outlets in australia are giving major support though, so there will be lots of places for people to find Wii's down under... just not at Harvey's... oh well, their service sucks anyway.!!!
The reason HN doesn't sell Nintendo products is because they don't offer price protection like SONY and Microsoft do. For example, if HN buys 50 copies of Halo 2 and only sells 30 of them, then in 6 months time Microsfot decides to drop the price of Halo 2 to under what HN paid for them originally, Microsoft will give them money back on each Halo 2 sold or even allow HN to swap their old stock for new games. Nintendo doesn't offer this at all.