Introduction
On Friday November 11, Nintendo released the Nintendo NES Classic system which is the size of your hand and includes 30 games. It retails for $65.
From what I heard, Toys R Us had some in stock early in the day. Then Gamestop had it available at around noon PST. I was trying to check out on both mobile and desktop and was getting nowhere since the site slowed to a crawl. Then also at around that time, it was made available on the Amazon Treasure Truck. That’s how I picked one up. Then at 2PM PST, it was available on Amazon and it crashed the product page within 10 seconds! I was driving at the time and was opening up the product page on the app and it showed as unavailable. My buddy in the passenger seat got a tweet and was able to buy it within 5 seconds. Then he tried to buy one for me for the next 10 minutes and got nowhere.
Selling it
Ebay was clearly the best way to sell it since FBA restricted the sale. I also didn’t want to deal with Craigslist flakes. My buddy immediately put his on sale at 2PM PST and by the time he got home, he said it was already sold for $250. I waited until I picked mine up from the treasure truck later that night. It was funny cuz there was a girl shouting out to people, “I’ll buy it for $100 right now from anyone!” I held my tongue and didn’t want to tell her it was up to $250 on Ebay in case she was trying to flip it. I overheard one guy tell her, “I’ll sell it to you for $200,” but she didn’t bite. Anyway, I listed mine by 8PM and it was sold overnight for $300 gross. After fees and everything, I’ll have pocketed a quick $200.
Going forward
Nintendo has promised it will have more stock before the holiday, so this is reminiscent of the Apple pencil last year. I would still buy it if I saw it in stock, but you should keep an eye on the Ebay prices. Good luck!
Damn I asked my wife for one of these for xmas for personal use. I didn’t think it would be like this…I thought they would make quite a few of them and there wouldn’t be this big of a demand for it. Wow insane…may have to wait until spring to get mine. Nice pick up!
My buddy told me, “Uh you can buy an NES and a cartridge with every single NES game on it for cheaper.” Don’t know the details, but I found the comment interesting. Then I realized I have no time to even play the games so oh well.
Yeah I am surprised they are going for so much when you can get older ones on ebay for so cheap. I will wait till they have stock…I am not paying over $59 to play one haha
Stupid thing is impossible to get your hands on. You and your friend were very lucky, congrats on the score.