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Wii U pre-orders already adding up

by on17 September 2012

Some have already stopped taking orders

The excitement around the Wii U is apparently much better than anyone expected here in North America. A number of the big box retailers have already stopped accepting pre-orders for the time being. Whispers we hear say that they have already sold out of their initial allotment of Wii U units.

Best Buy, Toys R Us, and Target appear to be sold out online. Sears/K-Mart seems to only be selling the Deluxe 32GB model and they are sold out of that, as well. GameStop is not taking any additional pre-orders for the Deluxe 32GB model, but are still accepting pre-orders for the Basic model currently. Wal-mart seems to be your best bet, as the retailer is still taking orders for both models.

One independent game store owner who owns multiple store tells us, “I have spoken with my distributor and he tells me that I would get at least a couple of both the basic and the deluxe units. When I pressed him as to exactly how many and when I would receive them, he told me that he didn't have that information for me yet, but he suggested that I limit the number of pre-orders, as it isn’t clear exactly how many units I will get. It sounds like the Wii all over again.”

Another smaller independent tells us, “My distributor flat out told me that I should not expect to get many units at all between now and Christmas, as supplies are limited and the majority of the available inventory is going to the big box retailers. In addition, he also added that what I do get will likely be limited to the Basic unit, as it would appear that the Deluxe unit is more popular for pre-order. To this end we have decided that we will carry the software, but we are not going to do pre-orders on the consoles.”

It is surprising that the number of pre-orders has grown so quickly. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo responds to this by attempting to increase the allocation of units to North America for the holiday season.

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