Topic: Best Buy Debacle

Okay, now I'm really starting to smell a conspiracy of sorts. I've been to a number of stores lately in Columbus Ohio, and there are a few titles I still have yet to see in the wild. Two in particular are Assassin's Creed 4, and Deus Ex, director's cut.

On my last visit to Best Buy recently, I asked an employee to see if any of his other stores had Deus Ex in stock. He pulled up the game and store list, and the columns read '0' from top to bottom. He said, ' Huh, that's strange. I wonder why Square Enix didn't send any out? ' I reminded him that the game came out last month, and we both scratched our heads, and looked at the zeros for a little while longer. He said he could order it, but I'm just going to download it, when I get paid this week.

Seriously, what the heck is going on? I expect the bad press, and the bashing, but stores aren't even carrying brand new titles now?

On a similar note, I've had to defend my interest in Nintendo against an emloyee ( Who wanted to sell me a Playstation ) on more than one visit, as well.

It honestly seems like USA / Canada have these Wii U problems.

In the UK shops I never get people question my console choice or have a problem buying Wii U games. o.o

'Debacle'??

It's a niche title on what is currently a niche system. Not that unusual.

Yes, debacle...
http://www.yourdictionary.com/debacle
It ain't that 'niche'. I've bought more obscure titles from BB itself. They carry the special edition Atlus games, fer cripe's sake. And I'm not talking about them selling out of Deus Ex, I'm telling you they never got it in in the first place. None of the local stores did.

I suspect it comes less from retailers and more from publishers. Demand isn't very high for 3rd party Wii U games (based off of past sales). To keep from having losses, as little games are stocked as possible, or just sold online.

This looks like you'll just have to get the game on Amazon or the like.

Video Game Payola

Neither the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions of Deus Ex are being sold in Columbus, Ohio either according to the Best Buy website.

I guess the 'conspiracy' is that Sony and Microsoft both paid off Best Buy to not sell the Wii-U version, while also paying them off to not sell each others versions either.

Help yourself to a cookie, Chuckles.

Retailers order stock based on what they believe will sell in their stores. If there's no copies of a particular item, whether it's a game, CD, DVD, BluRay player, etc, it's because the retailer outlet doesn't believe that it will sell at their particular store.

No conspiracy, no debacle. It's simple market economics.

@the_shpydar If that's the case then my Best Buy must have lost all faith in the Wii U altogether. There used to be a demo booth for it in the middle of the store, but now the Nintendo section has been shoved into a tiny dark corner with the Wii U demo booth being scrapped entirely while the PS4/XBONE take up the vast majority of the video game area. I definitely saw this coming considering how abysmal the system's performance has been, but it's still a depressing sight...

It's sad, indeed. Nintendo can release as many spectacular games as they want, but it just seems the Wii U may never gain traction. We'll see if the holidays bring any unexpected turnarounds, but it does seem like gamers just weren't looking Nintendo's way this generation.

It's part of the whole new Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut promotion where you got to be all stealth and actually search it out like you are a character in the game. It adds to the whole immersion thing everybody is into these days.

I think this entire thread was just so you could make a nose joke.

Well, 3rd party games don't typically sell well on the Wii U, and the sales of the system aren't too good either. I can see why they might be out of it

It's a Square Enix debacle, can you believe they delayed the Wii U version for this? Of course no where wants PS3/360 versions of the Director's Cut because many still have copies of the original laying around for $20. (What's more, those ports are poorly optimized and alltogether inferior to their originals.)

Sadly retailer's likely would have carried it in the lean spring and summer months, but now there's too much competition. Retailer's are hawking the new consoles and are putting all their eggs in that basket.

My wife works at the top-selling Target in the area and practically daily sends notices that their Wii U and 3DS stock is low (strangely, for well over a month this summer they were out of 3DS XLs). The games don't get restocked on either system. For instance, Monster Hunter Ultimate sold out in a week for both systems and they never got more in. People asked about it, she sent notices to order more and they never did.

The same is true for practically every third party Wii U and 3DS release. Skylanders and Disney Infinity being the prime exceptions.

sniffity-sniff

Oh, man. it's worse than I thought. Ack's post confirms it. This is completely unprecedented. How can you sell anything when you're getting chocked out at retail? I wonder if Nintendo is even aware that this is happening?

@SirGreatNose
I'm pretty sure Square Enix is the one supposed to be concerned that their game isn't at the store, not Nintendo. I bet they planned on having it be mainly an eShop game, anyway, with a few disc copies up for grabs. Who knows...

EDIT: Also, what ACK says is true for my area, as well. Wii U systems are actually selling pretty decent at retail stores where I live. They've even been out of stock here and there. Same goes for the games. They only have 2-4 copies of a Wii U game on a shelf while Xbox 360 and PS3 have like 6-10 copies of every single game from the past 6 years just sitting around. Software wise, the Wii U is probably doing pretty well, but that's also in part that they hardly stock the shelves to begin with.

Yeah, but the bigger picture is that third parties aren't selling, right? This is bad all around. Needs to be addressed.

Soon you won't be able to buy physical discs anywhere which will usher in a new era of more superior quality D4L versions... It's no skin off my nose really