Scalpers Set Their Sights On Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition

At this point I'm not even blaming them anymore, it's Nintendo thats enabling them to continue being scummy.

I am Shocked,
SHOCKED!
Well, not that Shocked..

Sadly this was going to happen regardless.

I really hope Nintendo will just keep releasing multiple waves, then come fall drop it completed. Watch those scalpers scurry like rats. I don’t think they’re going to stop at these two waves.

I did get one. While it was a pain, it wasn’t nearly as bad as getting a GPU, PS5 or XSX.

Wonder what would happen if we just mass-reported all of the scalpers' eBay accounts? or made some universal blacklist/shamelist of known scalper accounts?

Scalpers also have already gotten to the AI: The Somnium Files nirvanA Initiative Collectors Edition.

@iLikeUrAttitude This. Nintendo, Sony, they know how this works. They print these FOR the scalpers. That's the target market. The goal is marketing. The scarcity and high demand commanding high prices for insanely limited versions that don't need to be limited elevates the perceived value of the games themselves in a way advertising never could. This isn't a corruption of the intent. This is the intent of these limited editions.

Can someone tell me why they can't just, say, take preorders far enough in advance that they can put out as many special edition boxes as they need to? Even if about 10% of people cancelled before release, I'm sure they could still sell that many through their store.

This lies at the feet of Nintendo making it exclusive is the cause of this even if they had GameStop sell this only in-person this would stop such scalping. I waited waited 6 hours and finally got one.

The pandemic taught us a very valuable lesson of online shopping. It may be reliable, but it's nowhere near as fair.

I tried for 5 hours and STILL couldn't get one. Two of my friends also couldn't get one. Same thing happened with wave 1.
I'm completely SOL. This takes the cake for the most botched CE launch I've ever had the misfortune to be interested in. Shame on Nintendo here. 😔

@IceEarthGuard

I had no clue that was going to be so popular, but managed to get an order in randomly. I'd trade it with someone for a XB3, lol. 😂

I love how this site frames scalpers like they are bad, awful, evil people. That thumbnail made me lose my ****. Good show

"And in Japan, Nintendo is apparently leaving pre-orders open and will produce as many as required."

Considering that the extra goodies aren't shipping until later in the year, I don't see how they couldn't have open preorders for other regions. Sure, things take time to make, but I'm sure many will happily wait.

I landed a XC3 Special Edition after almost 90 minutes of persistence (Or insanity; take your pick...). The site didn't completely explode like the disastrous first attempt, but I had to deal with more than one wait queue and dealt with an endless phantom cart loop for awhile (which involved a LOT of refreshing and some tab management) until I was finally able to check out. I still didn't fully relax until I received the email confirmation.

This is an excellent use case on how NOT to handle preorders.

This is disgusting on both sides, consumer and corporation. Please stop scalping, you're ruining it for people who just want to play.

@YoshiAngemon Who is Bubs?

And they are just trying to make money like the rest of us. Not their fault there's no buying limit to these things.

I'm dreading the day the Pyra and Mythra amiibo release

@Axecon same, though I've noticed some of the more popular dlc fighters' amiibo have been very easy to acquire (Banjo and Joker, for instance) so I'm hoping it will be the same for Pyra and Mythra.
I am in the UK though so perhaps that helps, though I remember the horror of trying to get the first few waves of amiibo back in the Wii U days and it hasn't been like that in a long time

It was in my cart and then gone. Today you suck nintendo.

It took forever, required three open browser tabs on my PC and one on my phone, and even got several "out of stock" notices during check out, but I was able to snag one to complement the special editions of the other two games in the series. It was a horrible experience though...

@IceEarthGuard wow really? I actually preordered mine from amazon a year before (listing was super early).

Imo, the best way to beat scalper is to keep releasing the product until most people gets it. If most consumer are happy, scalpers would've hogged much more copies than actual people needing the item. They would lose time and/or money. I know I am very much dreaming. Hoping nintendo makes other wave seeing how well it sells.

Kinda glad I own the other games digitally. Wasn't tempted by this at all.

But yeah, as usual, scalpers ruin everything.

I don't approve of what scalpers do, but the shopping sites aren't to blame, as their goal is to have visitors complete the sales process as seamlessly as possible. Adding precautions against scalper bots and such will also add steps to the process that will provide more time for buyers to change their mind, which is obviously bad if you're a seller.

As long as the cultural fear of missing out exists, there will always be people buying from scalpers and scalpers will continue to exist. If we want to blame something, let's blame today's FOMO culture and stop being that guy.

@BloodNinja Sure they are trying to make money. But the cons outweigh the pro(s) imo.

• Lots of scalpers just buy it to make money, and not because they want to keep it and/or play for themselves.
• Lots of people who actually wants the item misses out on the item because it sells out quick.
• People probably thinks the scalper prices are the actual value of the game. (And then you will have non-scalpers selling it for crazy amounts of money, not knowing the actual value of the game.)

And more cons, etc.

@MasterHoover Yep, they are going for over $200 CAD on Ebay.

@Anachronism Isn't that Limited Run Games' business model? People get mad at that too.

What did we expect? Happy I'm not a collectors edition person right now.

These people are absolute scum and I do hope nobody actually buys off of them. Absolute wastes of human beings if you ask me.

Of course this was going to be the outcome. Of course Nintendo had to open the 2nd round of preorders before payday for a lot of people. Cool Nintendo, way to go, you guys rock

The only thing Nintendo cares about is that somebody buys them.

@ZZalapski Limited Run are a bunch of saints as far as I'm concerned. Admittedly, I haven't bought anything from them, but giving people the option to get Doom Eternal and Crysis 2/3 fully physical is fantastic.

Meh, I could care less about getting the special edition for this game, or any other game really...

@Otoemetry God, yes those early days were hell getting the first wave amiibos. I think after a while they saw the demand increase the production of certain amiibo. I'm out of that collecting scene now and trying sell all mine, but glad people enjoy the collecting.

@Kogorn733 Then, sellers would open new accounts.

I think the most hilarious part is these people are selling pre-orders to something that won't have for months; not sure why anyone buy that from someone considering what could go wrong. I see this as NoA problem and not Nintendo in general because one of few areas NoA has complete control over is licensing/product release in North America. They also run the website too. There's open pre orders in Japan as mentioned in the article, I wish Nintendo, a notorious top heavy corporation, would make that a cross the board decision.

@Anachronism Oh, I myself don't have an issue with their business model. (They perhaps charge a bit too much for shipping, though they're hardly unique in that regard.) But it seems like half the comments to any article about LRG is how much they suck.

Scalpers don't have jobs. Going out and clearing out desired games and then reselling for a much higher price is how they make a living...and I hate it.

I despise scalpers but I'm also annoyed with Nintendo and their artificial scarcity bull. Can we please just get enough stock for once? I never have this problem when buying a PS game, there are always heaps of copies available at launch.

I remember years ago when AC New Leaf came out and I went to buy it only to be told that our local store only received 5 copies and they immediately sold out. This is unacceptable.

God I hate scalpers. I just hate them. Heck people hate them so much that in a certain game that I don’t think I could say involved beating up a scalper in a side quest.

Luckily I only wanted the regular one, because it wasn't just as exciting of a edition like the CE of Xenoblade Definitive

But still it sucks, these people are just d***s.

@NEStalgia You already have the FOMO effect in action for every CE because you can only buy them within a specific time frame. People will still fear of not buying it before it is no longer possible. I don't see how heavily limiting the amount of copies is beneficial for the publisher. The only way I can see it be beneficial is if the publisher decides to overprice the product themselves by marketing it as a rare product. The money will go in their pocket. But in this case the CE is not that expensive and maybe much more people wants it, so why not keep selling it more? The money a scalper makes gives nothing to the publisher.

@iLikeUrAttitude,

How so, pretty sure the bots they use would buy up a lot of copies no matter how many Nintendo released.

The blame, or at least a huge part of it has to lie with reselling sites like E-bay, they should not allow for certain in demand items to be sold at ludicrous prices above their RRP, or perhaps, just perhaps the re sellers themselves for taking advantage of people.

Sure we're about to enter World War 3 while the global economy collapses in on itself while the earth catches on fire but getting that special collectors edition to set on your shelf after looking at once is what's REALLY important.

It's at times like this I count myself very lucky I don't care about special and collector's editions anymore.

@Tremblucay Yea I have bought a good few in the past and am just over them completely. Most just aren’t worth it at all. I just put those funds towards another game now.

If it is the one series you love more than any other then I feel for those who missed out. But it will most likely just sit there taking up space.

Also I hate scalpers. No one should buy from them.

I was 'processing the payment' for about 3 hours before giving up. Oh well.

Im just glad I got my soul hackers CE. This xenoblade one is not worth what scalpers want for it.

really? it's just the game, steelbook, and artbook. standard limited/special edition stuff. shouldn't even need to be scalped

@SwitchForce omg please no. That didn’t stop scalpers with the amiibos and GameStop’s system was so bad that they couldn’t track inventory well enough and they were literally overselling in store it was so bad.

I went 0/2 on getting one even though I was there right when they went live.

@BloodNinja On Homestar Runner, he's the guy that runs the Concession Stand at Free Country, USA. He is the kind of guy who has 99 ways of ripping people off. Throttling down internet speeds is not one of them, though. Also, he sells questionable goods and services on the storefront, but used to sell quality merchandise on the black market; he had a reputation to uphold at the time.

But since I'm going off-topic, and my original post was flagged, maybe I should've just DM'd you.

@iLikeUrAttitude Don't be ridiculous. The fault lies with those that pay the scalper prices.

The supply and demand model is a symbiotic relationship.

@BloodNinja They are bad awful evil people

On the bright side, the bonuses aren't worth the money, the hassle, or the delay you'll have in receiving the game. This particular kit was created specifically for scalpers, not for fans.

Don't support the scalpers for this people! Not worth it!

If this special edition came with a soundtrack, I would actually care to get this. No soundtrack with special edition? No buy! No stress! Getting the standard edition and calling it day.

I was never able to get one. More successful getting a PS5 on launch from Target (which was itself a miracle).
Nintendo needs to figure out a new strategy. As much as Limited Run Games can be annoying and SLOW, the way they accept pre-orders in a publicized window of time is the best way to do this, I think, if they want these editions to remain limited.

We just put them back on stock. Aaaaannnd its gone

@Strictlystyles Which inventory, please list them. With GameStop you had to go inperson - online you use BotNets regardless. Tell me which one was more toward in-person buying.

@MasterHoover That's exactly it. If it was about them making money from the CE, they would print as many as it takes to meet demand within that window. They'd take preorders and print them all so that if every single copy of the game is sold as a CE for more money if people want it so much, they can make more money selling the more expensive version. But they don't.

Selling CEs at higher margin than the base game, is therefore not the goal of the CE. And fans that want it are not the target market for it existing. It's designed to stir up the collector/resale/"scalper" crowd. It creates a big noise, an air of high demand and high scarcity in socials. It's talked about everywhere how the CE is impossible to obtain, and how fast it vanished and how expensive it is. It puts the game in front of everyone watching and tells them that it's a game that everyone else wants, and wants so badly they'll pay extreme amounts of money just to get their hands on the limited special print of it. It's an important title.

The goal isn't making a ton of money on a handful of LEs. The LE's exist to create this mess, to act as marketing. The game gains prestige, attention, cultural significance, and importance. Which drives up sales of regular and never to be unlimited full price digital copies. The idea of psychological exploitation for marketing purposes became so much worse after the rise of "social marketing" as an actual field.

The worst of it is Nintendo is really the origin of this idea. They've benefited from scarcity of their own errors on hardware in the past, then leaned into artificial scarcity to produce the same effect. And it unfortunately works. Now Sony's copying it.

Standard edition for me. But this is not good.

i almost go one about to check it out till they removed it from my cart saying no longer available which is bs this whole thing was a mess i seriously think they should of put the special editions in stores especially in store preorder only which would prevent scalpers from getting them all....Nintendo royally messed up on this....Also wished they allowed us to use paypal instead of just 2 different credit cards.

I'll be buying one off eBay this holiday. No shame, sucks to have to spend more, but my desire to have the special edition outweighs the frustration and anger towards Nintendo's awful purchasing experience by quite a bit.

I also bought the base game via Amazon to play at launch.

@IceEarthGuard Blame the company for making a limited amount.

@SteamEngenius just let people enjoy things.

@Anachronism I wish they would just do pre-orders and produce product until people stop wanting it, or at least until interest has dwindled. I know this is different than a Special Edition game bundle, but they should do that with hard to find game consoles too. Why can't I order a product when it's out of stock but more are on on the way? Have retailers forgotten about back orders?

@SteamEngenius Sure lets focus on that and never complain about something else....

@jorel262 Selling something that doesn't exist yet and that you're not actually producing does come with a certain amount of risk. I'm not surprised a lot of retailers don't bother with the hassle, especially with all the disruptions to the supply chain in the last couple years.

@BloodNinja But then again, maybe the company can't afford to make more special copies, or they just think the collectors edition won't sell well so they make less so they don't end up with a lot of extra copies.

Or they might have made tons of copies, but their is too many scalpers in the world. Not necessarily means they made too less of the product.

Oh, okay. Now it makes more sense. It's not Nintendo being awful, it's Nintendo of America being awful. That tracks.

@IceEarthGuard Or stick to digital, where there is no surplus and no shortage. If all you want to be able to do is play the game, that's the best possible solution. Then you can create a backup in the event your system fails, and you'll be good to go. I think people confuse ownership and access. Access is more important.

@defhed Scalpers keep doing this because people keep buying from them. If no one buys from scalpers the whole thing stops its that simple. People who complain about the scalpers but also buy from them are not the brightest.

@Kestrel It sure is. Japan and Australia did both really well only the US is screwing it up. But what do you aspect from the US at this point.

@defhed Why do people scalp? Because people buy from them. That is the whole reason behind it. If no one buys from them anymore no one sees the reason to scalp and sell it for a higher price. I'm shaming people for buying from scalpers because they are the reason this happens all the time.

The first day the XC3 special edition was supposedly available to pre-order I spend the entire day on the website, waiting in their bogus "queue" that never lead anywhere and refreshing the page across all my devices to try and get in. I wasted the entire day with nothing to show for it. This time, they announced the pre-orders with no fanfare and work got insanely busy for me. I could not afford to camp on their website all day because I have a job. Nintendo of America handled this exceptionally poorly and honestly are the least competent branch of all the Nintendo branches. Xenoblade is my favorite series and I am having to resort to scalpers now because I am not going to miss out on this due to Nintendo of America's incompetence. People want to blame those who turn to scalpers for causing the problem, but the real problem is NOA's mishandling of the situation. Restrict purchases behind Nintendo accounts that have existed for years. This prevents scalpers from creating bogus accounts to purchase multiple copies. There are solutions NOA could have used and they did nothing. And their most loyal fans who have been with them forever are the ones being screwed.

Don't know why my post was marked as trolling, I have picture proof of purchase and I'm entitled to do anything with my copy.

@Anachronism That is true for some things. But in the case of current consoles they are still making them.

How am I going go pay my bills if I'm not scalping smfh...f yall

@jorel262 I think they'd be worried about more dramatic problems, like companies going out of business, or even worse component shortages making it so there just aren't enough to waste any on luxury products like consoles. I don't think either of those are likely, but with everything else going on lately, they're certainly not impossible.

@CorePrideX
Fine. I'll have my copy of the game, and I'll forget all about this in a few months.

Take your grievances to those who care and/or can do something about it.

@EVIL-C I tried since launch at 10:30 until 6:51pm.
I ended up wasting so much of my day waiting and anxiously checking my phone.
It's so depressing I could cry.

It really was totally different in Japan... some weird problem with my credit card made it so that I couldn't pre-order a copy. I kept trying different things for a few days while panicking that my window of opportunity would run out until I decided to try using my wife's credit card, which is basically the same thing as mine since they're linked to the same account, and that DID work. Sorry to hear it's so messed up elsewhere.

This doesn't bode well for the Europe release which has been heavily delayed and will only be available to order a week or so before the game is out. Scalpers here seeing an opportunity and also American's hoping to grab one to import. A shambles.

@Baker1000 Its not really being delayed, they just say in the end of juli you can preorder it. And you got so many different nintendo sites for every country in the EU. So even for example I from the Netherlands can't preorder in another country within the EU. Only can preorder in The Netherlands. Its all fun and games but scalpers from the US can't buy stuff from the EU sites of Nintendo.

@NEStalgia How stupid can you be? For example you notice PS5's are sold at a loss. They need players to play on the PS5 and buy software to recover the loss. How does Sony benefit from scalpers? Do u really think companies are pro-scalpers? They aren't doing any good to them either use ur brain

@piecez you do realize you can get in serious trouble by price gouging items over their original price only matter of time before legal trouble heads your and other scalpers way.

why dont they just sell the art books individually i would buy one in a heart beat since i just preorder the regular version of xenoblade 3.

@Pakmo Are we talking about hardware shortages due to supply issues? No. We're talking about collectors editions of games and merchandise.

@RiasGremory I don't think so. It's simply low supply and high demand = very high price. If I have the only copy left on the internet for sale, I could price it at £1000 and that would be reasonable.

I reported this to eBay and you all should too because eBay wouldn’t let people sell the steam deck without having it on hand they shouldn’t allow this either

@CorePrideX I was talking about EU scalpers, and people who missed out in the US importing. And it is delayed. They should've had this up weeks ago but we're still waiting. Anyone putting a pre-order up the week before release has delayed it not done it by choice. And the artbook isn't even shipping with it, so that tells you that they haven't got it ready at all.

@Baker1000 The CE is being delayed (which everyone knows since the beginning) but the preorders for it are not. They said since the beginning that you can preorder it in the end of juli in the EU and that never changed. But the US is a special case to begin with, they always seem to screw up. In Europe with Nintendo store exclusive stuff that never happens.

@princess_shantae Ugh, 3 days later and I'm still feeling stress from that day. 😩 It's always possible they might have another round of preorders, but I'm not going to assume it's happening. 😔

@CorePrideX That may seem ideal, but that's not realistic at all, scalping affects people disproportionately. For someone with lots of money buying scalped products is no big deal at all. The extra money is nothing but a small convenience fee for them. Meanwhile others get priced out of a product altogether. The truth is the motivation to "just not buy it" is not there for everyone, especially at the same degree. Not to mention people who are desperate for gifts, and those that don't know how much something is actually worth.

The only real effective solution is to have an abundance of stock.

I am not even blaming the scalper anymore is nintendo the one causing the issues for not letting stores like gamestop to pre order them. I can almost bet someone inside nintendo is part of the scalper team. Like a management staff secure like 100 of copies themselves and sell it for double price so 90x 100=9000 almost 10k right there easily.

@CorePrideX I hate to say I told you so but...I did. They never had it ready and kept us waiting until now to tell us. If it was ready they would've had pre-orders up months ago.

@Baker1000 The onlything they delayed are the preorders. The release of the CE is still in Autumn. You're very bad at being a smartass

@CorePrideX nice edit. You're STILL not actually understanding my point. The CE was never supposed to be September, it was only the book that was delayed. Now the whole thing is delayed, which is why they didn't put the pre-orders up at the same time as America. This was my original point. They held off letting us pre-order because they didn't know if they'd be able to get the stock delivered.