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Nintendo Switch Features that Still Annoy Us in 2018
This has been a Nintendo issue for what seems like centuries (did you also have issues securing your Hanafuda cards back in the day?) and there’s no sign of it changing anytime soon.
Whether it is in an effort to increase demand and hype, or simply the company being wary about oversupply, almost every major release on the Switch has an irritating tendency to sell out at an accelerated rate. This may sound like a good thing on a base level — we want games to perform well, of course — but by being stingy with the amount of units shipped, Nintendo is unintentionally fueling the scalpers who are frothing at the mouth at the chance to gouge desperate fans.
It was true for the first run of amiibos, and it was true for the NES Classic Mini. Sleazy resellers thrived in the face of minuscule supply numbers, effectively punishing the fans simply for being fans. And, you know, not preordering, but let’s not twist the knife more than we have to.
And lo and behold, the trend has continued with the Nintendo Switch, most notably with the recent JRPG sensation, Octopath Traveler. Sold out at retailers across the globe, it’s indicative of a greater problem at hand here. Sure, you can dismiss Octopath for being a niche game with limited appeal, and there is merit to that argument, but you cannot deny that, at the end of the day, this was a console exclusive on a hot platform hungry for new releases, from Square Enix, no less — don’t mistake it for some upstart indie title that came out of nowhere.