Amazon UK Is Cancelling GameCube Adapter Orders Due To Lack Of Stock

They've delayed the 'Smash Bros with Gamecube Adapter' pre-order indefinitely as well. Just down as an unknown delivery date now! I think next time i pre-order anything I'll try go direct to nintendo. I've got Amiibo's, I've got a gamecube pad (or 3!) but no game or adapter!! *sigh

Yep, got the email myself.

Luckily, I knew a local store which has a couple of spare copies of the bundle.
Now I have the game twice... Oh well, will make a nice Christmas gift for someone.

Weird. What the hell is going on?

Just a very limited production run that sold out way too fast.

Ok just had an email from amazon that says they've out right cancelled the game plus adapter order as its no longer available!! Doesn't nintendo want my money!! I'd rather give it to nintendo than some charlatan who bought like 5 copies to sell on eBay!

This is ridiculous. I ordered mine from Gamestop (I'm in the US) a month before it came out. Went to the midnight release and was told they didn't have any of the adapters. Luckily, the cashier let me exchange my order for the last game/adapter bundle they had, so I do have one, but Nintendo should know better. If you can't even fulfill preorders for an item, why even bother taking preorders to begin with? The adapter was met with a lot of fanfare when it was announced, why they would think only a couple people would buy it worldwide is beyond me.

If this was a limited edition thing then Nintendo screwed up big time. They clearly should have labeled it as Limited Edition.

Nintendo really needs to get their act together after the recent screw ups in the UK with under supplying stocks of games and now this.

I think we should start sending letters to Nintendo to tell them what we think. (Albeit with less cussing than we'd like.)

I imagine some Chinese third-party will jump to the rescue here.

Very tempted to put my adapter on ebay but 8 player smash is too much fun.

Edit: they're going for £40+ on ebay if one reaches £60 I'm selling.

No longer available?! From the sounds of this it was never available to begin with!

Now I'm really glad I pre-ordered 2 of them at launch.

That is just ridiculous. Typical Nintendo completely underestimating the demand and not bothering having a backup when things go wrong.

Well looks like that's one thing i most likely would never get

Looking at the reviews for both the adapter and game + adapter, the vast majority of preorders got cancelled.

Ask them about the Amiibo as well, NintendoLife! Most of them are already impossible to get only a week after release!

Jesus the GCN controllers are gone as well and the price has basically doubled, what hell is going with Nintendo's supply.

And people thought I was crazy when I said I thought it'd be awhile before they replenish the stock. As someone mentioned, this was an optional adapter for one game on a system that hasn't taken off that well yet. For them, overestimating the demand would've been an even worse move, it could've been a big financial loss. They likely produced a finite amount thinking that would be more than enough and, considering it's only used for one game, didn't continue production past the initial batch. As there wasn't an ongoing production, it's not that simple to just "make more", it takes some time to renogiatate with suppliers for the materials and to start the production again. It's like a smaller scale situation Nintendo had with the Wii when they didn't have enough supply due to lower expectations (which in that case was because their previous console didn't sell nearly as well). There's definitely a few logical factors as to why Nintendo underestimated demand on this peripheral and is having trouble just "making more". More will likely come in time but it may take a few months before they're on shelves. There's plenty of other control methods, including GameCube controllers that behave like classic controllers by plugging into the remote.

@RainbowGazelle Speaking of amiibo, the Zelda one isn't even out yet and Amazon has stated it's unavailable to preorder.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nintendo-amiibo-Super-Smash-Bros/dp/B00QGBNLTO/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&qid=1417778544&sr=8-21&keywords=amiibo

Once again I want to slap myself for not buying the one I had in my hands at my local electronics store.

I will be so disappointed in Nintendo if they aren't going to make more of them. I'm sorry but its silly to not create more if the demand is there. Another mistake to add to Nintendo's recent portfolio.

I myself use the pro controller as i never really played melee that much. I own the controller adapter though. For the first time in "forever" it's actually nice to live in a country "Denmark" where no one seems to care about Wii U. Anything Wii U related will ever get sold out here. IMO the pro controller works better than the GCpad and adapter, since it feels like there is a small delay in the game when using them.

I got my adapter bundle from Amazon UK just fine. I guess I was one of the lucky ones. :/

@ShadJV except that these were preorders... So they knew the demand and should have scaled production accordingly. There's no excuse when you already have the orders.

@Tsusasi many of the preorder lists come long after production has finished. Plus not all stores bother to notify Nintendo of how many preorders they get.

I got mine through Game, which i only pre-ordered a few days before it was released.

Same for me, adapter cancelled. Oh well, I can use the other 50 million other controller options, not the end of the world.

And Amazon gave me 3pounds off my next game order. I'll use that towards The Order 1886 next year.

I had a game and adapter bundle on order with Argos for dispatch on the 5/12/14, but they rang a few days later saying they had no stock available.
They said they weren't expecting anymore stock in till February next year, and even then it would be limited.

@Grumblevolcano there's tons of Zeldas and all the other Amiibos here in the US. Cheaper here too. Import if you need one.

As far as the Game Cube adapters, Nintendo really dropped the ball if they didn't produce more. Expect third party clones within a few months time...

Thats sucks, my adaptor bundle was 3 days late and i was pissed. Did Nintendo under estimate demand for this product?

Try other Amazon sites. I just ordered mine in Amazon Italy even though I didn't have plans to play with it. I may consider now just to see what's the fuss all about. Shipping is within 2-5 weeks though. I'm not sure if they have stock on the way or just taking pre-orders and may eventually get canceled like in Amazon UK.

@FritzFrapp - "that allows use of controllers from a previous record low sales console."

Maybe you've forgotten but they also made BRAND NEW SSBU branded controllers that NEED this to work. I dont know what the stock situation is on those, but they did make them to be plugged into these. It was kind of a package thing.

Here in canada, the bundle was out of stock more than 3 weeks before release. My friend manage to grab an adapter in a specific ebgame : they had 1 freakin adapter. they took no preorder for the adapter. I mean....where do you go with 1 adapter for an anticipated game like that. Anyway.

Very disappointed at how difficult it is to get hold of the adapters. But this isn't the first time that Nintendo have underestimated demand.

@Achoo you're telling people to get their act together for people that ordered it and now are not going to get it because it was cancelled due to stock? Are you serious? Personally, I think these people that ordered it have the right to complain here as they ordered product, some even pre-ordered and now they won't get it because Nintendo decided to under supply it and now seem to have just stop producing them.

@FritzFrapp very interesting point that, I hadn't really considered it in that way. Guess it was always going to be hard to judge demand.

A lot of the 'sold out' press being garnered is also probably quite beneficial; can't remember hearing anything like it with anything wii u related before.
.

My guess is underestimated the demand and pulled some stock and resources to get them out in Japan where they probably think it's more important.

I got my Smash Bros. + GameCube adapter through yesterday. Fortunately, I cancelled my Amazon order as soon as they delayed it and switched over to ShopTo. I'm sure they'll produce a few more in time.

Managed to get a £40.49 pre-order of the controller adapter bundle pack which arrived a day before release. Thanks Zavvi UK!

Can't blame them really, I didn't think they'd be this popular either. It's great that they made one, but, it would have been cool if they just made a 'pro controller' shaped like a GC controller.... with analogue shoulders... yeah. Suppose we wouldn't be able to use our old controllers then.

I ordered one from ShopTo on Sunday and it was delivered yesterday.

Oh man, sorry for everyone.
Fortunately my adapter is on it's way in the mail! Managed to order from Amazon Germany and saw a couple in Amazon France, but the prices are either high or they won't ship to everywhere.
Hopefully Ninty makes another production run soon!

@FritzFrapp - Well they flooded the market w/ $299 White Basic Wii U so they lost a ton of money on that, but these only cost $20, which probably means $5 each to manufacture, and they help to sell a $60 SSBU game, and $30 controllers. I say flood the market w/ these cheap gadgets so they can be displayed in stores and people see them and want them, the controllers, the game, and the amiibo. Holding back on 1 cheap adapter is giving them a lot of bad coverage. Even if they made 1 million of these and didn't sell them all at full retail price that small cost would have been worth it to push everything that goes along w/ it.

Of all the things to worry about losing money on, a cheap adapter that supports an entire gaming experience was the wrong thing.

The person who decided to limit these is probably the same person who decided 8 was a good number for the amount of uses of the Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric demo.

There will probably be a million dollars made from selling these adapters. Just not made by Nintendo.

I actually had two at one point (pre-sale and post-sale when pre-sale was late).
I returned the one I didn't need — but I was tempted to put it on eBay.

My guess is that the last item that sold this well for Nintendo was the original Wii. So it probably will take months to resolve the shortfall.

@noctowl Yeah, I would, but those mothers cost a ton where I'm at. :I
Been doing fine with the Upad and Classic Pro so far, even Wiimote+nunchuk works fine (Thank God for button mapping)!
Wiimote only is just too clumsy, but we've had to do that for over 5 player matches.

Still, I'm looking forward to getting to utilize my collection of Gamecube controllers!

EDIT: Just reserved myself one Wii U Pro Controller along with a Smash Gamecube Controller.

@ZBomber That's on GameStop for letting you pre-order it, not Nintendo. I was working at a store when Wii and PS3 came out, and the managers would not let us stop taking pre-orders even though we obviously wouldn't be able to fulfill them all. In the end we had almost 60 reservations, and our store only ended up getting like 5 consoles.

This is not the first time they've over sold pre-orders, and it won't be the last.

Between the rare amiibos and hard to find adapters, I guess this is the Season of Shortages. :V

I do wonder how they could drop the ball with supply, considering they've been talking about this stuff since June. Unless they only started producing these accessories a couple weeks out from Smash Wii U's NA release.

I had one of the cancelled pre orders and as a result I'm not a happy bunny right now. Got the email last night and switched my order to the Mario amiibo bundle (which has fortunately despatched). But it now means I won't be able to use one of the key game features of 8 player smash. Through various controllers I have access to 6 that will work, but with 2 old GameCube controllers I had in the loft, that would have gone to 8. I'm not going to buy more controllers when I have some here.
I am fuming at Amazon though. A far as I see it, my business is with them. Don't take our pre order if you can't fulfill it. First time I've pre ordered anything, won't ever bother again.

Can you do up to 6 players using USB controllers on the Wii U, or do you need this thing to do more than 4 players? Best Buy sold my damn preorder set.

@ChewieD2 you do realise that this issue is ENTIRELY nintendo's fault right?

@TheHaydenator Plenty of blame to go about. I wouldn't say entirely on nintendo as Amazon would have been given a list of stock they are allocated. They continued to take pre-orders in excess of this number knowing they might not be able to fulfil the order. If i'd have known they couldn't of i would have ordered direct from UK nintendo store. Only reason i didn't was Amazon was selling it for cheaper. Nintendo could, should and hopefully someday will, make more adapters for the market. I'm more disappointed with the delay and then cancelation, if they'd have told me weeks before they couldn't get stock i'd have tried to buy it elsewhere. So don't worry I'm disappointed at both Nintendo & Amazon if that helps you?

@RIC616 I totally agree with you, Amazon would have known what stock they could get and continued to take pre-orders anyway. Like someone else said above, when you work retail you do this as even if you can't fulfil the order at least a rival retailer isn't getting the business. Not in anyway consumer friendly though. So I've no doubt Amazon are responsible. Nothing I can do about it know though so I move on, not going to waste too much energy on something outside of my control.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, I noticed that. I gues Nintendo can't even fill the pre-orders.

It fires me up seeing the rows of GC controllers on the shelves at Target and Best Buy for $30 but absolutely no adapters! They had no problem flooding the market with them. I wonder how many unknowing parents will buy the controllers as gifts because they're on the shelf next to the game and won't have the adapter to be able to use them?

At this point I say screw Mewtwo & CDs.....give me the adapter!!!!!!

walks in with SE Smash GC Controller
Hey guys! My controller finally arrived yesterday, now I can finally make use of my GC adaptor that came with my version of Smash Bros. at the UK laun- why is everyone looking at me like that?

@SigourneyBeaver Wow, I also ordered from ShopTo, though I preordered, so I'm still impressed they managed to fulfil your order. I can only imagine that Amazon just didn't order enough in the first place, if other online retailers can fulfil "late" orders…

@ChewieD2 "Like solcross said above, when you work retail you do this as even if you can't fulfill the order, at least a rival retailer isn't getting the business."

The irony being that when people find out what was really happening, those people are much less likely to be repeat customers than if telling the truth was the company's policy. The Gamestops of the world rely on people who don't care, and the people who are in-and-outs, not repeat customers.

@Quorthon I'm not sure what you mean with USB controllers?

"Our supplier has informed us that this item is no longer available."

Ah, so as was previously surmised in this saga of adapter articles, it was a supplier issue. Well, only the related semiconductor plant Executives in China (located in... Yantai, the plant location for the Wii U? Or maybe Shenzen? Suzhou? Guangdong? Zhengzhou? Chengdu? Who knows...) have claim to the (proprietary private property) Whole Story™, and the public will continue to be in the dark.

@PlywoodStick This is why I prefer to donwload my games now......but you can't download an adapter!!!!

I wanted the adapter, but I have a Pro controller on the way so it's not the end of the world for me. I'm not going to tournaments so the Gamepad, Pro, and Classic will work for us. If I'm able to pickup an adapter in the future, I will and this will allow us to use our three GC controllers too.

Glad my adapter was delivered yesterday!
Unofficial adapters are easy to come by, don't understand Ninty's problem.

sigh... Still nothing from my pre-order at GameStop. I hope they don't cancel that one too.

I still need another one so everyone can play with real controllers in 8-player Smash.

I pre-ordered the Game+Adapter bundle from them and they waited until release day morning to update me on the status of my order; delayed 3 weeks.

I think Nintendo were blown away by the demand, I wouldn't be surprised to fund out that they will soon start a new production run and enable them in Wii mode and add the controller data in their dev kits.

I'm honestly shocked its become this bad.

I'm glad I went with my gut and preordered the bundle. I'm also proud of myself for being able to hold onto $100 bucks for a few months and avoid those impulse purchases.

Has NL done a hardware review of the Hori controller yet? I may have to invest in a 3rd party controller, but it has to feel right to me, or I'm going the direction of the Wii U Pro Controller.

don't worry, someone will make a knock-off one that works just as well eventually

I'm not worried in the slightest.

If Nintendo chooses not to produce anymore, then they're simply going to lose out on money due to third party developers, which will inevitably be making their own GCN adapter.

They will make more lol