The GameStop rep told me that the way Nintendo is supplying the stores with their games now, they do not receive a bunch of inventory of games to have the available at the time of release; instead, they only ensure that they have brand new sealed versions of the games for people that pre-ordered the games, but then only receive like one or two copies of the game outside of the pre-ordered games. So they may have several copies of game cases on the shelves as placeholders, but they may only have a couple of games in stock. The rep explained that because they only had a couple of copies of the game, that is why the game they had available to sell was not in the shrink wrap. That still didn't make sense to me, but the rep said that that was how Nintendo was supplying the stores now with their Wii U, Wii and 3DS games, and that once the copies they have in the store have been sold, they could put in an order for more, but they didn't know exactly when the items would be back in stock.
If this is the case, was GameStop just singled out with this type of piecemeal inventory management, or are other stores subject to this as well? I know I can walk into my local Wal-Mart or Best Buy right now and pick up a sealed copy of the game, with several more being available for purchase, all in the shrink wrap, so why should GameStop be any different? Since I'm not privy to the inside details of how things work in retail, this may be the norm, just seemed kind of strange to me though.
Have you heard of or experienced this before when you went to pick up a game at GameStop?
Nintendo Limiting GameStop Game Supply?
I went down to my local GameStop recently to pick up some Wii U games I had pre-ordered. When I got there, I was told that I didn't have one of the games on pre-order like I thought, but luckily they had one new copy of the game left that I could purchase. I thought WOW, they must have sold out of that game pretty quick, because it was just released today and it's pretty early in the day! I did think that was kind of strange though, as the game I was purchasing was not one of those highly anticipated, sought after Wii U games. When the store rep went to get the game for me, he grabbed the case off of the shelf, then went into a drawer to get the game disc out to put in the case. I wondered why if the game was new, it was not shrink wrapped and the disc had already been removed. I've purchased "new" games like this before from GameStop, but that was in a desperate, last minute Christmas Eve situation where I didn't really have a choice. I never understood why, if the game is new, the shrink wrap is removed! Of course, with the game today, since it was just released today, the likelihood of it being used was slim to none, but still, it bothered me that the game was not shrink wrapped, so I decided not to purchase it. I just have to have the shrink wrap!
