It should probably come as no surprise at this point, but if you live in Australia and were planning on attending the midnight launch event for Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the main EB Games store in Melbourne, unfortunately, the event has now been cancelled.
This decision is unsurprisingly linked to the coronavirus outbreak. According to EB, "due to the government restrictions" cancelling large gatherings of 500 people or more, the launch event will no longer be taking place on Thursday night. The earliest fans will be able to pick up a physical copy of the game and the Animal Crossing-themed Nintendo Switch is Friday morning.
If you've opted with a digital copy of the game on Switch, obviously this won't impact you, and you'll still be able to play when the game unlocks at midnight. In related news, Nintendo's New York store earlier today announced it would be temporarily closing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. You can read more about this in our previous post.
[source vooks.net]
Comments 19
This is exactly why I pre-ordered my copy through Amazon today and getting release date delivery. I live in the US, but I'm not risking it.
Not surprising. Strange times we live in
Australians are busy buying toilet papers, no time for games.
“You can read mroe about this in our previous post.“
Spell check, STAT
Quite sad to see. I wouldn't be surprised if the Corona virus really hurt this game's long-term success, even though it should be a top-seller.
@NoTinderLife : The Australian public are playing Mortal Kombat in their pursuit of the papery gold that is TP; does that count?
@Xiovanni another Kiwi here—I visited the Melbourne store a couple of weeks ago. It’s bigger than ours on the ground floor, but then there are a smaller additional two floors just for Nintendo stuff. Level 1 is the store, Level 2 just has a bunch of Switch pods and people are standing there playing demos. It’s pretty cool.
Switch console stock levels are low too.
@Euler how ???most will do what I did cancel the physical and buy digital
@Xiovanni The Swanston St store (that was going to have this launch) is really big and can get some pretty big events at times. Would have been a lot of people all around Melbourne moving their order to the store to attend. It was actually going to be a 10pm launch rather than a midnight launch too, which is the main reason I was planning to attend (as catching the train home after a midnight launch can be annoying). There'll probably still be a lot of people there Friday morning but nowhere near as much. I'm just going to sleep in and go in the afternoon personally.
Honestly, looking at all the restrictions we get here in Germany or elsewhere, I have doubts that Amazon or any other delivery service is able to ship this Friday. Safety first, but really, Nintendo should have already reacted to release the game early. I am keeping fingers crossed but there are new restrictions every day and it is still 3 days to go....
@AndyBerlin digital will happen no matter what and right now the safest I cancelled mine and preordered it on the eshop
@DAHstroy by ordering so close to release you might not get it on release. That happened to me with a game under normal circumstances. Who knows what the shipping situation will be like in the coming days. I decided to go digital for this one.
@Darkyoshi98 with the eshop going down you won't be anymore likely to get the digital copy on time.
@Man_Iron There's an Amazon factory house 5 minutes away, and I have prime delivery. If it doesn't show on March 20th, I'll be shocked.
Yeah it happened to me with prime shipping 1-2 years ago. The very last time I ordered a game physically I got 3 days after release, for Kirby star allies, but I blame FedEx for getting it to a facility 20 minutes from my house by 8 am on a Saturday and leaving it until Monday.
They probably improved since then but I didn't want to risk it. Most of my library is digital anyway.
@Man_Iron
Some of us don't have internet. I purchased for same day delivery. The product is a few hours away from us. Might be a delay but honestly with all that is happening I am not worried as long as it gets here.
@dwrbdr Ebgames, Jb-hi-fi, Target, Big W, Harvey Norman...All of them have delayed shipments of the consoles. Something really bad is happening
I hardly buy games in stores due to how quickly they sell out without a pandemic going on. I got mine the same day it came out via Amazon. Sucks but eventually youll get it. I would just order via online digital code if you have a good internet speed.
Tap here to load 19 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...