SNES Classic: My Experiences

Despite reassurances that the snes classic would be aplenty at launch most retailers have really dropped the ball.

The Source had pre-orders up at one point that took their servers offline for several hours culminating in not a single person actually being able to order one. Their launch day was in-store only with around 20 units per store and no online purchasing being available.

Best Buy had online ordering on launch day. I had the console in my cart and was checking out when it was suddenly out of stock. This happened in less than a minute.

Walmart had online ordering around 9AM EST and I was able to successfully checkout. I was then informed via email around 40 minutes later that I was now on backorder and the item will be cancelled if it cannot be filled in 3 days. The 3 days have since passed and of course my order has now been cancelled. I’m not surprised as my only previous dealing with Walmart was also a disaster.

Amazon started their selling around noon. They decided to make it a prime member only sale. This is sleazy anyway you put it. I signed up for prime and was able to get it delivered the next day. Thankfully you can cancel prime within 30 days. Amazon seemed to have the bulk of quantity for sale as they never did do any pre-ordering.

I really wish Nintendo would have sold this directly through them. The retail chain leaves a lot to be desired.