Is Nintendo breaking street dates intentionally?

Cliff_Forster

The only reason I know about this story is because I pre ordered a retail copy of Lego City Undercover that is three days late arriving. In all the years I've pre ordered games, I could not recall one missing the street date once it was set in the final month leading up to sale. Apparently this is the second time Nintendo has had a "shipping error" in recent memory. Fire Emblem had a similar issue, but they were still all to happy to sell to gamers digitally while they were working out some "retail distribution problems".

Do we think this is a mere coincidence, or is Nintendo playing a dirty little trick in an attempt to bolster their digital sale's vs. retail? I know the 2nd hand game market has been the bane of the console business for some time now. Does it seem a little unethical? The entire reason for a street date is so no retail channel can get the upper hand. I guess this is a legal gray area? If it's a direct download, is it not the same product? It seems to me Nintendo has figured out a clever way to get the jump on the street date of any hot product they want by just having some shipping issues at the 11th hour then offering the product via download while their retail partners have to wait around a few days.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/03/19/lego-city-undercover-gets-shipping-error-delay.aspx

mertesn

Apparently you were one of the unlucky ones. Others have their copies in hand.

Cliff_Forster

I'm not concerned about the timing of the game (my nine year old is a bit displeased though).

I guess the discussion I'm looking for is to say, if this happens, should digital distribution have to hold their downloads back until retail can get on equal footing? The entire purpose of a street date is to keep sales competition fair. It's a big deal when one of the major retailers break street date on a product. I know Wal Mart caught allot of flack for breaking the street date on a Harry Potter novel, selling it about two days early in some stores. I think Target did on the DS Lite, selling it earlier than other retailers and got into some trouble, fines and such. I'm just saying, if your Nintendo and the next big Mario game comes out, you could go to market digitally early in an attempt to slowly snuff out the traditional retail channels, ultimately weakening the pre owned games business that is costly to them.

I guess what I'm saying is I wonder how accidental the Fire Emblem and Lego City shipping errors were? I wonder if they gained much traction in digital sales by being first to market. It would be interesting to have the data.

mertesn

There's a big difference between a shipping delay and breaking street dates. You can't break a street date by selling a product after the street date. In the case of Lego City, a street date wasn't broken; the delivery for some preorders was delayed by an undisclosed shipping error.

Given that some customers received their physical copies on time and others didn't, I'd say that Lego City's problem was a legitimate shipping error. If no physical copy customer received their copy on release day there could have been something fishy, but even then it couldn't be said definitively.

I don't see it as fair to the digital customers to delay a release because some percentage of the physical product had an issue, whether due to a shipping problem or a problem with the packaging itself (missing instructions, a batch of bad discs, etc). After all, why should digital customers be forced to wait for no good reason when there's a problem with the physical copy? It sucks for buyers of the physical copy, but them's the risks.

Ultimately I think this is just an unfortunate event. Unless there's actual evidence of Nintendo holding physical product back to boost digital sales, it'd be nothing more than tin foil hattery to suggest otherwise.

boasist

If this was EA, Microsoft, or Sony even, this thread would have a totally different tone.

But yes, don't blame Nintendo.

Even Best Buy and other large retailers get the games day of release via FedEx or UPS most times now. Which, you could then blame piracy.....

Thrax

Digital sales don't factor into the market research that initially reports the success of a game, which is a publisher's one big opportunity to catch the attention of their investors.

If anything, there is a disincentive to go public with digital downloads first.

Tushon

Thrax said:

Digital sales don't factor into the market research that initially reports the success of a game

Why not?

Thrax

WHY IT'S TIME TO GROW UP AND START IGNORING THE MONTHLY NPD REPORTS

It’s important to remember two things about the monthly NPD reports: they only look at the United States and the focus is squarely on retail sales. “NPD’s monthly point-of-sale data reports on US Games Industry sales occurring from new physical purchases at retail which is the largest channel for games sales… it does not account for consumer purchases made via digital distribution, used game sales, subscriptions, mobiles, rentals, or social network games,” the disclaimer included with the data discloses. There is a quarterly report that offers some estimates at the size of those other markets, but its methodology is just as vague.

Investors and analysts don't know this; NPD is gospel as far as they're concerned.

Tushon

Thanks! Classic mega-corps and unaware investors

Cliff_Forster

That is interesting @Thrax. It's hard to understand not tracking digital sales. One look at my Steam account and you will know I'm obviously not opposed to paying for a download, but my daughter had a gamestop gift card, so it was a matter of pride for her to go to the store, pick out the game she wanted and wait for it to come out. We have been talking about this game for months now, it's the primary reason we got a Wii U. The Mrs. went to Gamestop yesterday, it's still not in. Frustrating for us.

To me it's interesting that this mishap has occurred on two Nintendo offerings though. I understand the investor angle, and why it may not make sense. Still, I'd love to know, when the delay occurred on both Fire Emblem and Lego City, how many opted to download vs. wait for retail. I'd love the statistics. It may be "tin foil hattery" but one can't know for sure without seeing some quantitative cause and effect. I suspect it helped introduce some consumers to their digital storefront that may not have been inclined otherwise. Being first to play a favorite franchise is a key psychological driver for allot of gamers. It drives many to buy at a premium on the first day. It's not as much for me, I generally wait for things to hit the $19.99 bin, but in this case it's a disappointment, but we will patiently wait until next week.

RahnalH102

While I can't confirm that my store had Fire Emblem: Awakening on it's launch day, it did have it on hand sometime later that week as I got my copy from them around Thursday-Friday (cause I remember playing the !@#$ out of it and staying up all night without noticing.)

This past week, my copies of Monster Hunter were delivered to me on release day, however my friend who went to buy it the same day could not find it at our local store. Also the Save Data Transfer tool wasn't released till last night despite it supposed to be released with Monster Hunter, and that is ON Nintendo's Online store. Granted it is a free tool so it doesn't really backup an argument in this thread. Apparently though that was Capcom's fault for whatever reason.

So, personally, I'm leaning towards it's the retailer/delivery service's fault, other that that I'm not sure on this subject. "Online" stuff has been a weakness of Nintendo's for awhile now, so while I doubt they are intentionally doing it, they may be doing something else that may mess with the releases or something.

Cliff_Forster

Finally got Lego City Undercover. Watching my daughter play it reminds me of myself experiencing The Legend of Zelda for the first time. She is glued, can't stop herself from playing. I fooled around with it a bit, it's actually does a good job of adding references that adults will enjoy. There is a whole Shawshank Redemption like prison level with a Morgan Freeman sound alike, a character called "Blue". The references, the open world, the use of the Wii U pad, it's the best console exclusive I've played in a long time.