NES Classic Edition Sold 196,000 Units in US Launch as Pokémon Sun and Moon Set Records

I love my NES Classic, but I hope the stock starts to outweigh the demand post-Christmas. I've got a lot of friends who haven't found one yet.

Why in the world do they keep breaking up the two versions of Pokemon? That makes way less sense than combining the Smash Bros. for 3DS and Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Now imagine what the number could have been had they planned and stocked the NES Classic Mini properly. It's a good thing the Wii U is selling so well and the money is flowing in. It should have been their big stocking filler and a plughole to fill the void of the Switch missing the holiday sales.

And how many of those went up on eBay minutes after release?? That number should be north of 500k if they had done their research!

Imagine how much it could have sold...

196,000 units sold is a good thing? Let's put this into perspective to show how idiotic NOA really is:

196,000 units sold out of the possible 318,900,000 people in the United States alone is only 0.061% of the population buying your product.

I'm not saying that they should've had 300 million+ units on hand, but those sales figures should have been much much higher. Reggie, get your head out of your butt and use your social media accounts to DO SOME ACTUAL RESEARCH!!!!

I HATE that fps game. Completely Evil.
Btw, well done Mini NES.

@Dakt It only had a few days to chart and as far as I know NPD still tracks physical for a lot of publishers.

@IronMan28 Because instead of selling 1 game, you can sell 2.

I'm starting to suspect that the Devil's Third developer that said NoA is true. Basically, they order the bare minimum to NCL and if the demand is high the NoA excutive get bonuses.

"...This is the case in any U.S. company, especially in the sales division; they always underestimate the sales performance. This way, when they sell over the low estimated sales, they can claim a higher percentage over estimated sales and request a bigger bonus accordingly. There is a typical tendency for this to happen. That's a fact, and it's a flaw in U.S. sales strategy."

http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/11/16/13596478/the-ups-downs-and-future-of-tomonobu-itagakis-devils-third

Now we have a pretty good idea how many Nintendo made: about 196,000.

@Equinox I'm starting to have an irrational hatred of Reggie every time I see him. He talks waaaaay too much (usually about absolutely nothing we care about), and he obviously can't make sound market projections.

@Dakt @IronMan28 The top 10 chart is also by revenue now rather than units sold. Actually makes Pokemon more impressive considering it's a $40 game.

I firmly believe that if enough had been in stock, the NES Classic Edition could have been met with Wii or Pokémon Go levels of success, selling millions of units and appealing to both hardcore and casual audiences young and old, but the poor stock doused so many people's interest. Would've been perfect to build momentum for Switch, too. Nintendo really dropped the ball on this one...

@Equinox Remember when fans said NOE was the worst? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Nintendo is one of the only company I know that can make a crap ton of money easily but just leave it in their customers pockets. They should have known the nes classic would generate a lot of interest.

There was also a lot of people asking for some remastered Wii and GC games for WiiU for the holidays.

I honestly hope they bring there A game with the switch.

They made a huge mistake with the NES Classic. The number of units they should have made available at the bare minimum is 500,000, but anywhere around ~700,000 would've subsided the scalper market substantially.

The numbers for the NES Mini are ridiculous, especially because Nintendo could have sold a lot more and made more of a profit! Only scalpers benefit off situations like these!

Holy shnickey! That number is much lower than expected. WTF Nintendo

Probably would've sold 400,000 if they were around!! Not dropping $200 on amazon either - I will wait. They better not pull this shortage crap with the switch!!

Didn't even think there were that many, sure seems like only 1,000 are out in the wild! I kid, I kid.....

Now if only they had combined those Sun and Moon sales...

@shiggysplumber

"196,000 units sold out of the possible 318,900,000 people in the United States alone is only 0.061% of the population buying your product"

Um... that's actually really good. For one, out of the 318 million people in the US, how many are actual consumers of the dedicated gaming hardware market? Probably 50 million tops? And of those 50 million, how many actually play retro games? Maybe 5-10 million? And of those, how many actually specifically play NES, don't emulate, and want to spend another $60 on a system to play games they likely already own?

Here's another way of looking at it. The best console launch in Nintendo's history is somewhere in the ballpark of 3 million units. Worldwide. Ok. And that's for a brand new console. So how much of that 3 million do you think was only the US? Maybe 1, possibly 2 million? This is a re-release of a 30 year old console. 200k is basically 10% of the best hardware launch in Nintendo's history, and all with a 30 year old mini NES!!!

I'm shocked it sold as well as it did. They would have been fools to estimate more than that. Just like amiibo, people all say they want it when they can't find it, as soon as they crank up the stock levels all of a sudden interest drops into a dead zone. And I bet you if they had doubled the stock, retailers would be sitting on 300,000 extra units that they can't get rid of, just like those truckloads of amiibo that're all marked on clearance for $2.50

@JaxonH the mental gymnastics involved with this post is exhausting. Some people just want to call a dog turd a hot dog.

Still hoping I can get a mini NES myself, haven't heard about any Canadian restocks though...

@shiggysplumber

The less fortunate among us confuse logic with "mental gymnastics"

Guess you're born with common sense or you're not.

People talk about an SNES version of this, well I got news for you. I would bet real money more NES versions with different games will also be hitting the stores in the not so distant future.

@JaxonH common sense would show you that these sales figures are trash.

@shiggysplumber
Based on what? The hair standing on the back of your neck? Or that little devil on your shoulder telling you so.

The historical sales evidence and real world expectations say otherwise.

@JaxonH based on the hype that was built up prior to the launch. People actually wanted these things, yet so few were able to get one.

I can see you just want to believe you're right and not face the the fact the these sales figures are indeed pretty poor considering the level of interest prior to the shortages.

@shiggysplumber
Here's some perspective for you to chew on.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/251473/ps4-vs-xbox-one-vs-wii-u-usa-launch-sales-comparison/

PS4 USA launch sales 963k
Xbox One USA launch sales 652k
NES Mini USA launch sales 196k

It sold 30% as well as Xbox One did, and 20% as well as the almighty PS4. A 30 year old, 8-bit console. And you call that trash? What, was it supposed to outsell PS4 and Xbox One?

Ya, that's real logical. I can see common sense is on your side.

edit
Wii U USA launch sales 421k

So... it did almost half the numbers Wii U did (which despite bad long-term sales was one of Nintendo's most successful worldwide launches in history).... hmmm. Absolutely horrid. Clearly they should have broken sales records. "30 year old NES outsells every Nintendo console at launch of the last 3 decades!" Yep, very plausible headlines there.

@JaxonH the difference between the ps4/xbone and the NES mini is availability and timing. There aren't any nes minis to buy right now, and sales will continue to plummet in the next 6 months due to shortages. This thing is a failure from a sales standpoint.

@JaxonH You have to consider the price as well. A 60 dollar system with 30 built in games, some of which are super iconic and/or flat out legendary, is a lot different from a brand new 400/500 dollar system.

@KirbyTheVampire
Sure, but at the same time, we're talking 30 built in games which people have been playing for 30 years, on a system that has been available for 30 years, whose games have been sold on other platforms for the last 10 years.

So it is indeed a lot different.

@KirbyTheVampire excellent point. Another reason these sales numbers are atrocious.

@shiggysplumber
I'm pretty sure when a 30 year old system does half the launch numbers of Nintendos most successful launch to date of the Last 3 decades... only a pundit with an agenda could call that atrocious. Even "average" would be a severe stretch of the truth.

But "atrocious" implies it didn't do half as well as it should. If that were true then that means, according to shiggysplumber, that a 30 year old system rereleased should have out sold the Wii U at it's launch.

The only thing that's atrocious here is your line of reasoning.

@JaxonH careful, I hear they've put something funny in the kool-aid at NOA.

@shiggysplumber
"kool aid"

The de facto crutch those without an argument lean on.

Can always tell when somebody's argument is worn thin when that word starts rearing its head. Might as well tick off every logical fallacy in the list while you're at it.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/

Thanks Nintendo for limiting it and making people being stupid and jacking up the price, no wonder people emulate old consoles.

Good job Nintendo! Keep making more mini NES to eventually meet demand!

@JaxonH It's people like you who give Nintendo fans a bad name. You defend the plainly idiotic decisions made by a company that doesn't understand basic supply and demand. A company who doesn't care about their reputation until it hurts their bottom line.

Please, go enjoy your nes classic (if you have one), but leave the rest of us sane folks alone in peace.

@JaxonH Original NES's and their games are hard to come by, and have been for a while. Yes, there are emulators like you said, but a lot of casuals who only play a select few games wouldn't even know those existed. After all, game developers don't exactly advertise them. And at this point, most non-gamers, or people who don't really game anymore, have all but forgotten about the original NES. I can picture a lot of people either buying this for their kids or for themselves for old time's sake, not to mention all the people who can actually be considered gamers. The real surprising thing would be for something like this to NOT sell like hotcakes. I think the fact that people are willing to spend 300 bucks for this thing on eBay speaks for itself.

@shiggysplumber
leave us sane folks alone in peace

So I must be insane because I don't agree with your illogical, emotion-based opinion? Don't get mad and start throwing insults just because you're wrong.

I'm not defending anything. Just speaking facts and observations from history. We saw what happened with amiibo. "There's so much demand! There's so much demand! Make more!" They make more, nobody buys them. Not only do the people complaining not buy them, but the scalpers stop buying them also, and the hardcore collectors only buying because it's rare. And the end result is they actually hurt sales rather than help them.

This is no different. Take a look at how many have sold on eBay...
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html_from=R40&sacat=0&_nkw=nes%20mini&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

Almost 20,000 units, and probably another 20,000 that haven't yet sold. That means scalpers have accounted for up to 20% of the launch sales. If they increased supply to double the stock, to 400k, maybe an extra 50,000 people buy one, yet those 40,000 the scalpers bought _don't get purchased. And at least another 10,000 they don't get bought because it's not rare anymore. You end up with no more sales than you do now and 100,000 extra units that they sit on and never sell, end up getting clearances for $20 next Christmas.

I'm not saying it's ideal, I''m just saying that's how it really is.

@JaxonH K, bye.

@KirbyTheVampire
Your theory sounds plausible, but I haven't seen anyone who's not a hard-core gamer who knows this thing even exists. I think it's possible that the casual gamer would have maybe bought it as a novelty if it had first caught on like wildfire. But as it stands it's just another niche product for the hard-core Nintendo fans. The fact so many people bought it on eBay speaks to the core base of fans willing to pay inflated prices for the sake of collectibility.

Take that collectibility away with excess supply, and you strip away the very reason those people wanted to buy it in the first place.
I can personally attest to this- I used to line up in front of retailers at 5am for rare amiibo. Always day one, and would buy multiples just because of the fever of a rare collectible. As soon as they became common, I lost interest. Now I don't even keep up with release dates anymore. And most people on this site who complained of the OOS amiibo, never bought a single one after they increased supply.

I've learned these past 2 years how difficult a demographic Nintendo fans can be. Produce right at demand and there's a shortage because of the scalpers eating up 20% of it. Only way to counter that is over-supply with excess stock well beyond demand, but then not only is there excess stock, the scalpers also don't buy their 20% anymore either, and the fans who wanted it because it's rare, well they don't buy any either, and it all compounds into an exorbitant amount of stock (see amiibo shortages vs post supply excess).

It's a lose lose scenario. You either deal with a slight shortage or extreme excess. And Nintendo seems to do the logical thing and chooses the lesser of two evils every time. It's a bad situation all around but I'm just trying to share my insights in hope of others getting a glimpse of what took me years to finally understand.

Geez just below 200,000 NES Mini? That's not good. And how many of those sold were bought by scalpers? I'd say close to half. NES classic choukdve sold a million, easily, if they actually produced and stocked them.

3DS's i noticed are sold out everywhere. That's awesome they saw a sales spike, I love that handheld.

You know, regarding the NES mini, the scalpers wouldn't exist if people would just stop buying stuff from them at their inflated prices. Just sayin'.

@KrakenSoup
"Should have sold a million"

I actually posted on this earlier, but even the Wii U only sold 400k in the US during its launch week, and (despite its poor long-term performance) Wii U enjoyed one of the strongest launches in Nintendo history. So 200k in the USA alone for a 30 year old console... not bad.

Nintendo needs new leadership. They are so so so disconnected from their fans.

It's hard to believe Nintendo didn't know they wouldn't sell more than 200k units. So they're back to their old playbook of purposely limiting stock to create media noted demand for their products.

The only thing they didn't count on is the measurable backlash via social media and the net. That didn't exist in the 80s. The backlash existed, but a way of sharing it didn't. And now, you also have adults who are pissed.

They really make me wonder why they consistently miss the obvious.

.2 million NES classics were sold, that's how many Nintendo made, are you kidding me? They could have sold 2 million on launch day alone.

@JaxonH

Lots of non-gamers at my work have been trying to get a mini. It is connecting with casuals. The Gamecube and Wii launches sold alot more than the Wii U and PS4 recently moved 1 million at launch in the US.

However, I think you are looking at this wrong. The mini isn't comparable to home consoles since they are multi game, multi-media, high dlllar investments. The mini costs as much as 1 game and it's not uncommon for popular games to move 1 million + at launch.

@cleveland124
Well maybe I'm wrong and casuals all want it, but I'm just not seeing it. Usually casuals don't keep up with stuff like this. And only ever become interested, or even aware of its existence for that matter, after something vecomes viral (Pokémon Go)

It is cheaper, but again it's also 3 decades old, with games everyone has played for years with a 3 foot cord and standard RGP inputs in a 4K and HDTV world. It's nice for fans, but even I didn't want to get one and I'm a pretty big fan.

But look at the Mini Sega Genesis and see how much that one sold. Or any of the Retron consoles. NES far exceeded all the others. Honestly, I'm shocked it did so well. My guess is its heavy on the front end. It'll sell a ton it's first week or two then it'll be spent forever. I just don't see alot of demand for NES. Now, if it were SNES? I think we'd be having a different conversation.

Wait, there are 190k NES Minis in the world?

@GraveLordXD
Kid Icarus...

That one'll put hair on your chest. Kid Icarus frustrates me to no end. Even with abusing virtual restore points. I don't understand how anyone could beat that game without assistance. I mean, I was a pretty skilled gamer as a kid- rockin the Mega Man 1-4 and X at a ripe young age... but Kid Icarus? Hell no. It's not even a game. It's.... raw punishment.

@JaxonH

Of course the NES mini far exceeded the others. This was a better done product and there is more brand awareness and nastolgia for Nintendo. If you were paying attention to social media, this pretty much went viral prior to release.

Really this should be heavy on the front end which is why launch sales should follow software more than hardware. In an ideal world this should be available for holiday sales and then be phased out the next 6 months. Unlike consoles which can make themselves more appealing to consumers through price cuts or new games/features this can't. It is what it is at a fair price. Then next holiday Nintendo could come out with a mini 2, mini snes, or just focus on the switch.

@GraveLordXD

Could be the lag disrupting your timing.

@3MonthBeef Yes, but then how come millions of consoles could be shipped and not the NES mini? Nintendo does have the ability to do this.

@3MonthBeef

Scalpers don't take any consoles off the market. They need to sell the systems to make the gig work. Think of them as an unethical best buy.

@GraveLordXD

Honestly I don't have much experience with Kid Icarus, but Mr. Dream on VC on an LCD is impossible to me. Whereas I can easily beat him on a CRT. So I know it's a real thing.

Walmart third party sellers?

@GraveLordXD
Wow, props to you! I never played it until it released as a 3D classic but, I don't think I would have wanted to play it as a kid. Might've turned me away from gaming all together

@cleveland124
I don't disagree with you. Ideally that would be the best way to go. But easier said than done, right?

@JaxonH

Well I feel like a big company like Nintendo should have more outreach with consumers so they know what is available. I mean too often I get the feeling that 5 people in Japan huddle in an office and make decisions and then they are surprised that people either like their product (NES mini) or don't like their product (Wii U). So while I can see missing demand, the level they miss at amazes me. Yeah, I get they way over produced the Wii U. Probably cost them $350 each and they probably had 2-3 million in inventory at one time so they probably were close to $ 1 billion in inentory and that sucks. But this costs at most $20. So 1 million units would be $20 million. That's peanuts to Nintendo.

@JaxonH That was possibly the best take down of vacuous, edgy, baseless trash posing I have ever seen.

"Man, Nintendo should have been aware of the numbers. This is atrocious."

//Gets presented with numbers\

"Some people don't want numbers man. Too much mental gymnastics."

"But the numbers undermine your statement"

"...Err, Kool-Aid"

"That's not a counter-argument"

"K. Bye"

//Scurries away with tail between legs\

Again, it's not to say that NoA handled everything perfectly (I mean, the system was understocked - that much is obvious), but if you're going to declare something an atrocious failure, it helps to have a leg to stand on in an argument. Otherwise you soon end up looking like a clueless poser with an edge-complex.

@3MonthBeef

Scalpers aren't holding onto inventory. Especially because there is a big risk that the price falls off a cliff after Christmas. Trust me. My friend has scalped 6 minis and works very hard to locate them. Everytime he gets one they go up on a 1 day ebay auction immediately.

Supply and demand dictate what people pay. Ebay shows that there are a good number of people willing to pay $200 for this product. But there are way more that are willing to pay $60 and can't get into the market at that price. So it's pretty obvious why those that want to buy at msrp and can't would be upset.

@Maxz
I'm glad you can appreciate the art of logical fencing. Although, even if I was dead wrong, it's not hard to come out on top if the other person isn't being logical.

@cleveland124
There's also the cost of not only the hardware, labor and shipping, but also royalties to third parties for their included games and storage at the retailer. The longer product sits unsold the more Nintendo jeaopardizes their clout with said retailer. And with Wii U's unsold and now truckloads of amiibo unsold, I don't think they're anxious to go for hat tricks, especially with Switch about to launch.

If Mini NES hard to find, you can always buy old NES in great condition, buy also your specific games and you can enjoy NES games experience without complaining about limited stock of Mini NES.

well lets just learn from this and pre-order a switch now!

@Dakt I believe this NPD period is Oct 30th to Nov 26th, but FFXV released Nov 29th so would be in next months chart.

@IronMan28 It actually makes the most sense. If you were to count them as one game, you wouldn't be accounting for the people who bought both Sun & Moon vs people who only bought Sun or Moon. If you combined them as one game, you'd basically be saying, people loved this game so much, they bought it twice. But if it had been sold as only one game, the numbers would surely be much lower than would be reflected in combining the sales of two different carts.

So... basically Nintendo tanked the NES classic to create false demand and get news coverage in the ramp up to their Super Mario Run/Switch media tour.

So very shady.

Wow, I really hope those 196,000 buy a Switch!

Nintendo will be Ballin'!!

I just couldn't get one. Couldn't. I looked at every Target and Walmart from here to Hong Kong and they were all sold out.

@JaxonH

I think you overstate those costs. Pretty sure Nintendo doesn't pay for retailer shelf space. And the at games Genesis has almost 3x the games and cost $20 less. Either way the costs are peanuts to Nintendo.

I think the problem we have here is Nintendo still has no clue what demand is. So they keep increasing output to try and meet demand. So what happens when the meet demand? Likely they be sending their biggest shipments to retailers to sit on shelves and create an amiibo like situation.

It will forever baffle me why Nintendo screwed up the NES Mini! With no big Christmas game release besides Pokémon, this would have ben a sure fire money maker. But here we are, a week before Christmas, and no where has any for sale other than (expletive deleted) scalpers on ebay! And I keep flicking through magazine and newspapers' gift guides and they're all featuring it. And it would make the ideal gift for a lot of people. There might be a restock after xmas but that's gonna be too late. The impulse gift buy will be gone and in January the focus is gonna be on the Switch!

Nintendo please make more!!

Is it true that the Nintendo Store-UK had Nes Mini's in stock today?
(they havn't now)

@cleveland124
They may not pay for retailer space, but they do pay for storage space at a warehouse if they have extra. All I was saying about retail space is that it's limited, and if product is just sitting it can cause retailers to lower orders next time, meaning less shelf space for Switch

Nintendo had clearly undersestimated how many people not into their newer things are nostalgic about the NES.

@3MonthBeef You did prove most people's point, though. Even if 400,000 units being produced would have just led to a lot more scalpers having one, as you put it, that is still another 204,000 units of sales into Nintendo's coffers.

I willing to bet that this NES Classic Edition could out sell lifetime sales of the Wii U.... If Nintendo wanted it to.

@shiggysplumber No he is using some common sense something alot of people round here seem to lack when it comes to this sort of thing. This was a novelty product designed for a select niche audience those numbers are not that bad really

@JaxonH

Well Nintendo would have to have fulfilled all the retail orders before they would have to worry about keeping units in a warehouse. Fun fact though. In a 10'x10'x10' room you can almost fit 10,000 of these because they are so small.

Also, I don't think retailers lose confidence in a brand as quick as you say. If they did, after the Wii U debacle where every retailer had stacks of them, nobody would order any Switches.

@JaxonH Nice to see someone who gets it here

I have been stoked to get one of these since I first heard about them, but I still have yet to get one and was hoping to get one by Christmas. Thanks Nintendo; to your failure to properly stock anything outside of Pokemon, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros. games.

NES Classic Edition sales would have easily exceeded 1 million by now if Nintendo had actually made enough of them.

@3MonthBeef

The goal of a scalper is to maximize profit. They can't do that if they don't sell items. There are a handful of listings above market. One NES classic is listed as a BIN for $50,000. I think overall the little that don't get sold don't really affect the market because most scalpers don't have storage and just want to get rid of things.

I think it's also hard to know what the end game for someone is that lists an item that far over market. It would seem to me that they don't actually want to sell it and maybe just want to keep/use it because for all intents that NES is not part of the market and won't sell.

For a plug-and-play device, the NES Mini still put out amazing numbers. It could've done much much better, but the tricky thing is that it's not an evergreen item like a Pokémon game for a current-gen console. They definitely misread market demand, but sales for this thing would (and will) drop off much more rapidly than Nintendo's mainline software, and never spike again, barring a potential upgraded model (NES Mini+?) that drives interest in getting a cheaper version of that.

As it is, I expect it to put out good sales numbers after the first restock and then quietly fade into obscurity. The reality here is that most people (excepting the hardcores) aren't buying this machine to PLAY the games like they would with a current-gen system, they're buying it to recapture the feeling of playing them. Once they realize that's impossible, it goes on the shelf or on eBay and demand evaporates.

NOA should subtract units sold to scalpers.

Which just means that's all they had on hand, which shows you quite how much they underestimated demand...had they shipped 500,000 units, they'd have sold out, but made over twice as much :- If I could have possibly gotten one, I'd have maybe even bought a few as this is priced pretty perfectly for a gift....but sold out

@JaxonH If I'm not mistaken, wasn't that million in sales for the PS4 for the launch day?

@Vineleaf
Says first week of sales

@cleveland124
No that's not true, they'll always order a new console, even if they knew ahead of time it was going to be another Wii U. What they would do, however, is limit shelf space and floor advertising (like when GameStop shoved Wii U into a tiny corner in the far back end of the building, accounting for like 5% of floor space. And that just propagates the cycle further- The less retail presence it gets the worse it sells, the worse it sells the less retail presence it gets.

edit
Also, from an article about the true cost of excess inventory (which as someone who studied economics, I can tell you it can be one of the worst money pits a company can fall into)

Excess inventory storage cost covers everything associated with keeping your inventory organized in one place, as well as secure, safe and in good condition. Storage costs include rent, utilities like lighting and heating, security and upkeep. These costs are primarily seen in the form of wages for janitorial or security workers, as well as securing the physical space for your product

Take a look at any warehouse- the utility bill alone can be $40,000 a month. Not to mention rent (companies often rent an extra warehouse for unsold product- they don't needlessly pay rent and utilities for empty space all year just in case they may happen to need it- storage space is almost always fully utilized already, so unsold inventory can result in renting extra space)

@JaxonH

A 10'x10' building costs $40,000 a year to heat? You have to remember that these are tiny. As someone that works in economics, you should know how important sales are to a company and if you don't have a product to sell, you make no money. And it's really even worse than that because you're not covering any administrative expenses like that $40,000 heating bill at your corporate office.

@cleveland124
That's true, and demand outstripping supply definitely takes its toll, but I'm simply pointing out supply outstripping demand also takes its toll... moreso than most realize

@JaxonH

And we've come round circle. I still think Nintendo should have produced more and had a better idea of market demand. I mean what's the rational for Japan receiving 100,00 more than US. There's no logical reason to think there would be more demand in Japan than the US.

@Nintendoforlife Still bugs me, that they don't separate 3DS and Wii U Smash...

@IceClimbers Huh, I didn't realize it's by revenue. And, yes, that does make Pokemon's numbers even more impressive since that's the case.

@Dakt I'm less cynical than that, but it's possible you're right.

@GreenMonkie I appreciate your logic, honestly, I'd rather NPD gave the same treatment to Smash than Pokemon get the Smash treatment.

I was mourning the fact that I wasn't able to pick up an NES Classic, but then I remembered that my SNES still works just fine. Which is more than can be said of my New 3DS XL, whose D Pad is failing after a year and a half... I guess they don't build them like they used to.

I found one a coupe weeks ago, but it's frustrating as a Nintendo fan knowing so many others haven't been so lucky. Sometimes I feel they either underestimate demand or purposefully send low numbers to drive up demand. Either way, it's a great little unit. The folks at Gamestop told me they actually get in fewer extra controllers than actual systems. Weird.

@Maxz I liked the whole "there's 318 million people in the US" bit. Hilarious trolling. "Oh Nintendo, just bang out 318 million NES minis please..."

This is what happens when Nintendo eats the Member Berries, and develop the urge to go back to the past: They release a Plug-N-Play that gives us that feeling, they end up supplying the Trollish Scalpers, they piss off the irate customers, for big laughs, as if they're the Jerky Boys, and it forces consumers to look to the FUTURE, with XBox One S, Rare Replay, and PS4 and their games, causing Nintendo to crumble! At the risk of sounding British, "I believe Nintendo ate the Memberries!" And when society eats the Member Berries, everything goes to hell, and Humanity goes Extinct, pleasing Viridi, the Goddess of Nature!

FORGET PLUG-N-PLAY CONSOLES! Nintendo needs to make Compilation Game Paks for the Nintendo Switch, with all the proper emulation, and none of this Plug-N-Play Scalper Bullshit! And they should be allowed to distribute the game digitally! No Middleman, no scalpers, no foolin!

"While it should also be noted that $99.99 small New Nintendo 3DS models sold out fast during Black Friday"

Correction: they initially sold out fast during Thanksgiving, a holiday that has been warped into a business frenzy, with a very limited restock at Toys R' Us a week into December, and selling out within 1-30 minutes with every online restock, mainly from Walmart.