Sanrio Animal Crossing amiibo cards rant

[BriGuy82 | 792]

I hate scalpers to death. Wanted to get these cards for my 10 year old daughter who LOVES this game. It's literally her favorite thing in the world. They sold out in 5 seconds due to bots or some other form of scumbag sorcery. I'm totally gonna buy the bootlegs for her if they are available.

[drxandy | 3,236]

You are not alone, my store said they didn't even get shipment but my order went through after a bit at 9:06 and 40mins later got cancelled. I know they're just cards but I really wanted em and followed all the rules dangit.

[DefaultGen | 5,436]

I honestly didn't even try to save myself the disappointment. Either Nintendo finds a way to get these to me for normal prices or I can just skip them. At least it's a third party promotional thing and not like Mario and Luigi items.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

17 hours ago, BriGuy82 said:

I hate scalpers to death. Wanted to get these cards for my 10 year old daughter who LOVES this game. It's literally her favorite thing in the world. They sold out in 5 seconds due to bots or some other form of scumbag sorcery. I'm totally gonna buy the bootlegs for her if they are available.

It took me a while of spamming the order button but I finally got an order to go through yesterday (and they didn't cancel it!)

With the limit being 2, hopefully Target looks into these sellers that magically have 10+ for sale.

[croagunk | 798]

I’ve been trying so hard to get a pack. I’m in Canada, so they are exclusive to Best Buy and Amazon. I’ve been constantly checking both sites since the day before release because I missed the preorders. According to people on Twitter there were restocks on both sites yesterday. Must’ve been gone in seconds because I never saw them.

[drxandy | 3,236]

I did a chat with a target rep and they told me that because the demand was so great there is going to be a restock and they will be available in store. I really don't know if they are just lying now to cover.. guess we'll find out.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

31 minutes ago, drxandy said:

I did a chat with a target rep and they told me that because the demand was so great there is going to be a restock and they will be available in store. I really don't know if they are just lying now to cover.. guess we'll find out.

There's really no reason there wouldn't be a restock on these at some point.

[tidaldreams | 654]

Apparently these were available yesterday if you went to the store. Leave it to Target to butcher an exclusive release.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Quite a few people were reporting them available in store so you might try checking your local Target. But yeah, it was the usual limited Nintendo product shit show.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

My wife asked about these and took a look to see the usual out of stock at the two stores offering them with thousands readily available on eBay for 10x the price. I blame Nintendo just as much as the scalpers, if not more. Zero chance I buy from a scalper or go out of my way to chase these down. If Nintendo doesn't want to adequately stock their merchandise like a normal company then I'll gladly pass.

 

Sucks for your daughter though... hopefully you can track some down without too much trouble or they get restocked.

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Is it really Nintendo's fault though?  Let's take feeling out of it and step back a moment.

Let's say they have marketing figures (and I'm simplifying) that says that 50% of the AC base at 2M sold(again made up) are women, and of that comfortably figure 1/2 of that are either girls or grown ups who care about Hello Kitty.  They'd know they could comfortably at least clear 1/2M card sets.  Of course they'd print more, maybe double, just in case of collectors, AC nuts who have to have it all, and extra pad in case.  Now spread 1M card sets to every Target in the country.  They're definitely not going to make as many sets as games, and surely not more.  it creates a no win situation.  Scalpers can just be a-holes, show up and if Target doesn't regulate it, buy them all before people can walk in and get it.  Nintendo isn't going to make more to fight scalpers when there's a hard presumed cap of AC+HK fans too as then they'd be losing a lot of money on producing, packing, shipping the things.

Squarely the blame falls on a mix of Target and largely scumbags making it hard for legit customers between the two.

[bowser | 600]

Yeah you can't blame Nintendo for this. It's Target and the scalpers responsible for this situation.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

On 3/29/2021 at 3:43 PM, bowser said:

Yeah you can't blame Nintendo for this. It's Target and the scalpers responsible for this situation.

Name another company that does this time and again without directly saying something is limited. Nintendo is a scalpers wet dream because of how they release products. See what happened with the Mario G&W?.. it was scalped for about a day before it was back to retail because of the huge influx of stock. Scalpers either gave up and returned their stock or got stuck selling below retail. 

[bowser | 600]

They will release stock according to projected market demand. It's bad business to make enough for scalpers plus actual users.

In the case of Game & Watch they must have projected huge actual demand. They didn't just make a bunch of units to deal with scalpers.

Edited March 30, 2021 by bowser

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

2 minutes ago, bowser said:

They will release stock according to projected market demand. It's bad business to make enough for scalpers plus actual users.

In the case of Game & Watch they must have projected huge actual demand. They didn't just make a bunch of units to deal with scalpers.

Yeah... 32 million copies of AC sold... no demand there lol. They're paper cards... how much could they lose by printing a few extra thousand or releasing them without being exclusive? While Target may have had a hand in this and scalpers will always do their best to get around purchase restraints, Nintendo is always the common factor with all these botched releases.

[BriGuy82 | 792]

3 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

Yeah... 32 million copies of AC sold... no demand there lol. They're paper cards... how much could they lose by printing a few extra thousand or releasing them without being exclusive?

Honestly, I was thinking the same thing. They're just cards. I bet the mark up is high enough that they could've actually overproduced these and still ended up making a huge profit regardless. 

[YOURTURN | 1,257]

4 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

Name another company that does this time and again without directly saying something is limited.

Uniqlo.

Square Enix.

Kotokubiya.

Good Smile Company.

Hasbro.

Pizza Hut (to a degree).

Should I go on?

Because the point I am making is that demand tends to outweigh supply. And that no logical person would say "This game sold X amount of Y, therefor it's their fault that a retailer ordered X amount of Y." just because they didn't get what they want. At least without actual evidence that backs up their claims.

In the end all of us have to make compromises just for the sake of enjoying this hobby. But a situation like this? Unless the manager at every Target store you visit says that their HQ has cut them off from getting more, expect their HQ to order more. Which means Nintendo will make more because they are going to be paid to do so.

Nothing less, nothing more. Because in the end this is no different than being told that your favorite crust is sold out on the day you need it. With reasons being that others were faster to getting it first.

And that is a situation I dealt with on both ends of that business. 

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

15 hours ago, FenrirZero said:

Uniqlo.

Square Enix.

Kotokubiya.

Good Smile Company.

Hasbro.

Pizza Hut (to a degree).

Should I go on?

Because the point I am making is that demand tends to outweigh supply. And that no logical person would say "This game sold X amount of Y, therefor it's their fault that a retailer ordered X amount of Y." just because they didn't get what they want. At least without actual evidence that backs up their claims.

In the end all of us have to make compromises just for the sake of enjoying this hobby. But a situation like this? Unless the manager at every Target store you visit says that their HQ has cut them off from getting more, expect their HQ to order more. Which means Nintendo will make more because they are going to be paid to do so.

Nothing less, nothing more. Because in the end this is no different than being told that your favorite crust is sold out on the day you need it. With reasons being that others were faster to getting it first.

And that is a situation I dealt with on both ends of that business. 

I don't fully agree. Nintendo sold 32 million copies of this game and the supply of these cards, like a lot of their product releases, seems to be grossly underestimated - especially considering what the product is and the markup they would be making. I understand they are a conservative company but this has been a consistent issue with them for at least the last 10 years. Why should it be such a pain to buy select Nintendo product on release time and again? I'm sure there are other companies that run in to this problem as well, as you mentioned, but if they were as consistent as Nintendo at not meeting demand I'd be bitching about them too.  

[YOURTURN | 1,257]

4 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

I don't fully agree. Nintendo sold 32 million copies of this game and the supply of these cards, like a lot of their product releases, seems to be grossly underestimated - especially considering what the product is and the markup they would be making. I understand they are a conservative company but this has been a consistent issue with them for at least the last 10 years. Why should it be such a pain to buy select Nintendo product on release time and again? I'm sure there are other companies that run in to this problem as well, as you mentioned, but if they were as consistent as Nintendo at not meeting demand I'd be bitching about them too.  

Sorry to be blunt, but your entire argument is still based on you being pissed just because scalpers screwed you out of a collectible you wanted. Which is understandable because I am required to dish out $300+ for a figure I want just because Kotokubiya has chosen not to do a re-release of that particular figure, among other things.

As for the facts... This has nothing to do with Nintendo being "unprepared" for what just happened. If you recall, I also mentioned Hasbro. In their case it is both their Star Wars Retro Collection and G1 reissues. Every collector pointed out that scalpers, resellers, and those who use bots are to blame. With the same proof others here can offer for this product.

Which proves that Nintendo is not the only one to be part of a situation like this.

As for the numbers game... According to Nintendo, their IR sales data states that Animal Crossing sold 31.18 million in international sales. NOT in the United States alone. Otherwise, we might as well say that number is in Japanese sales as their data came from their Japanese website.

Plus additional finds on this topic had me find out that they are currently sold out internationally. Which is not surprising because the product promotes both Sanrio and Nintendo, and not just Animal Crossing. So those who otherwise do not collect the other have a reason to buy this product. Even though not everybody who does will want to in the end. (See edit for example.)

[EDIT: I also bought a digital copy of this game. Nintendo knows this to be true. But I am not a big enough fan to be bothered to buy every little thing made for the series.]

Edited March 31, 2021 by FenrirZero

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

1 hour ago, FenrirZero said:

Sorry to be blunt, but your entire argument is still based on you being pissed just because scalpers screwed you out of a collectible you wanted. Which is understandable because I am required to dish out $300+ for a figure I want just because Kotokubiya has chosen not to do a re-release of that particular figure, among other things.

As for the facts... This has nothing to do with Nintendo being "unprepared" for what just happened. If you recall, I also mentioned Hasbro. In their case it is both their Star Wars Retro Collection and G1 reissues. Every collector pointed out that scalpers, resellers, and those who use bots are to blame. With the same proof others here can offer for this product.

Which proves that Nintendo is not the only one to be part of a situation like this.

As for the numbers game... According to Nintendo, their IR sales data states that Animal Crossing sold 31.18 million in international sales. NOT in the United States alone. Otherwise, we might as well say that number is in Japanese sales as their data came from their Japanese website.

Plus additional finds on this topic had me find out that they are currently sold out internationally. Which is not surprising because the product promotes both Sanrio and Nintendo, and not just Animal Crossing. So those who otherwise do not collect the other have a reason to buy this product. Even though not everybody who does will want to in the end. (See edit for example.)

[EDIT: I also bought a digital copy of this game. Nintendo knows this to be true. But I am not a big enough fan to be bothered to buy every little thing made for the series.]

I looked around when my wife mentioned the cards in passing and saw that they were pretty much instantly sold out at the two places selling them here in Canada on release day.  My wife instantly lost interest in the cards when I told her the deal. I didn't start this thread, I just chimed in to basically say this shouldn't be a surprise, because again, it's Nintendo. I stated that Target and scalpers obviously play a role but ultimately I still think this comes down to Nintendo providing enough stock or opening up to more retailers to mitigate these practices. They're capable because they do it all the time as we saw with the SMB G&W and honestly the majority of their products. I never have trouble buying games for example. 

I fully agree that Nintendo is not the only company and I take your word this is an issue in other companies. From my personal experience it rarely happens with exception to Nintendo. I hope they restock soon so people don't have to feed the scalpers but after buying amiibos and the mini consoles it's hard to cut them any slack. 

[YOURTURN | 1,257]

5 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

I looked around when my wife mentioned the cards in passing and saw that they were pretty much instantly sold out at the two places selling them here in Canada on release day.  My wife instantly lost interest in the cards when I told her the deal. I didn't start this thread, I just chimed in to basically say this shouldn't be a surprise, because again, it's Nintendo. I stated that Target and scalpers obviously play a role but ultimately I still think this comes down to Nintendo providing enough stock or opening up to more retailers to mitigate these practices. They're capable because they do it all the time as we saw with the SMB G&W and honestly the majority of their products. I never have trouble buying games for example. 

I fully agree that Nintendo is not the only company and I take your word this is an issue in other companies. From my personal experience it rarely happens with exception to Nintendo. I hope they restock soon so people don't have to feed the scalpers but after buying amiibos and the mini consoles it's hard to cut them any slack. 

That is the thing.

You chimed in by saying all of this is Nintendo's fault. You also dismissed the fact I gave you more than one name, which is something you asked for. And used information that offers no justification for the idea that Nintendo did this intentionally. So moving on since you are made...

I will point out that Nintendo stated that they had to ramp up production to meet the demands when it comes to their Pokémon TCG stuff. They also noted that due to the pandemic they are around a year behind on production. This also means anything else they had planned to release in card form had to either be minimized or put on hold. With this being the former because nobody expected scalpers to take advantage of this, or any, situation.

Thus, even if they were able to produce more on the spot it will not change the fact scalpers will try to get those as well. The best example when it comes to Nintendo is the McDonald's scenario. It is similar to both their mini console and Amiibo stuff, except scalpers continued to target these well after it became a known fact they were easier to get offline.

And for the record... Hasbro is far worse than Nintendo when it comes to stuff like this. 

Edited April 1, 2021 by FenrirZero

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

14 hours ago, FenrirZero said:

That is the thing.

You chimed in by saying all of this is Nintendo's fault. You also dismissed the fact I gave you more than one name, which is something you asked for. And used information that offers no justification for the idea that Nintendo did this intentionally. So moving on since you are made...

I will point out that Nintendo stated that they had to ramp up production to meet the demands when it comes to their Pokémon TCG stuff. They also noted that due to the pandemic they are around a year behind on production. This also means anything else they had planned to release in card form had to either be minimized or put on hold. With this being the former because nobody expected scalpers to take advantage of this, or any, situation.

Thus, even if they were able to produce more on the spot it will not change the fact scalpers will try to get those as well. The best example when it comes to Nintendo is the McDonald's scenario. It is similar to both their mini console and Amiibo stuff, except scalpers continued to target these well after it became a known fact they were easier to get offline.

And for the record... Hasbro is far worse than Nintendo when it comes to stuff like this. 

No.. you're putting words in my mouth... I said, 'I blame Nintendo just as much as the scalpers, if not more'. I've fully admitted that they (the scalpers), bots and Target in this case played a role the entire time but I don't believe Nintendo should escape blame. I also didn't say Nintendo did this intentionally, just that it's a common theme with some of their select products... it could have been a mistake, an underestimation, etc. but it's still a common occurrence with this company regardless of cause or intention. You corrected me on it being common with other companies which I didn't realize and admitted otherwise I think Nintendo, specifically NoA, could do a better job with distribution and communication with their products. That's all I am trying to get across. You will not convince me that Nintendo plays no part in this happening. We simply may not agree on this situation. 

 

[DefaultGen | 5,436]

It looks like they're down to $25-30 so far, which is that sweet spot where I wonder how it's worth anyone's time to go physically scalp these for so little profit (assuming you can only get 2 per store) but also too expensive for me to pay the scalper premium for.

[YOURTURN | 1,257]

8 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

No.. you're putting words in my mouth... I said, 'I blame Nintendo just as much as the scalpers, if not more'.

 

Factually... You accusing me of that is an attack, and not the truth. Because I was replying to what I was reading. But after you saying that about me... That truth does not matter. 

But if you feel like it is the truth, feel free to leave me alone. That is all. Because you did not care about anything I did say, or was wiling to say. You care about your own truths, which is why you attacked me with said false claim. Nothing less, nothing more.

And yes, I have been in your situation before. As well as dealt with those who have made these complaints when it came to both Star Wars and Transformers stuff. As well as relate with your right to be annoyed when it comes to my current collection, as well as my side collection.

With that said I wish you any luck on getting them, good ser. And try to realize that you did attack me. Because in the end this is VGA... NOT some GoCollect knock-off forum. 

Edited April 2, 2021 by FenrirZero
I'm done, but I am also trying to stay respectful.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

On 4/2/2021 at 12:09 AM, FenrirZero said:

Factually... You accusing me of that is an attack, and not the truth. Because I was replying to what I was reading. But after you saying that about me... That truth does not matter. 

But if you feel like it is the truth, feel free to leave me alone. That is all. Because you did not care about anything I did say, or was wiling to say. You care about your own truths, which is why you attacked me with said false claim. Nothing less, nothing more.

And yes, I have been in your situation before. As well as dealt with those who have made these complaints when it came to both Star Wars and Transformers stuff. As well as relate with your right to be annoyed when it comes to my current collection, as well as my side collection.

With that said I wish you any luck on getting them, good ser. And try to realize that you did attack me. Because in the end this is VGA... NOT some GoCollect knock-off forum. 

I don't know what you're going on about. I'm literally quoting what I said and how you took it out of context. You can clearly see I did not say it's all Nintendo's fault and that's how you started you last post.