3DS Supplies Still Plentiful at Major U.S. Retailers

There continued to be ample supplies of the 3DS to meet demand at all the major U.S. retailers that we checked with on Wednesday, three days after the autostereoscopic 3D portable game system’s launch in the market. Supplies are typically spotty at retail in the first week of a major videogame system’s launch.

It wasn’t immediately clear why supplies of the 3DS remained so plentiful. Nintendo of America (NOA) spokesman Charlie Scibetta said Tuesday that day one sales were “the highest of any Nintendo hand-held system in our history” (CED March 30 p10). He said more details will be released April 14, when first-week U.S. sales figures are tallied by research company NPD. “Nintendo worked hard to get as much product as possible to retailers on day one to meet demand, and we will continue with these efforts moving forward,” he said.

Not clear was whether NOA had been able to ship more systems than normal for a game system’s launch to avoid the sort of shortages it faced with the Wii, or whether consumers were holding back on buying the 3DS due to possible factors including its $249.99 price -- high compared to prior Nintendo handheld systems -- or a selection of launch games that didn’t include any of Nintendo’s key first-party franchises. Nintendo had said that of the 4 million 3DS systems it will ship this fiscal year, through March 31, 1.5 million will be in Japan and the other 2.5 million will be split between Europe and the Americas (CED Jan 20 p2).

On Wednesday afternoon, both the black and blue 3DS SKUs were in stock at Best Buy’s e-commerce website. Six Long Island and five Manhattan Best Buy stores, along with its Jersey City, N.J., location, all had both SKUs in stock also, according to BestBuy.com. Both SKUs were also listed in stock at six Los Angeles-area and two San Francisco Best Buy stores, as well as six Best Buy stores each in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Fla.

Both hardware SKUs were also still in stock at Amazon.com, GameStop.com and Target.com Wednesday afternoon. Nine Long Island Target stores, along with one in Flushing, N.Y., and 10 each in the San Francisco and Miami areas all had both SKUs in stock also, according to that retailer’s website.

Capcom’s 3DS game Super Street Fighter 3D Edition was listed as the most-purchased videogame product at Amazon.com on Wednesday afternoon, the same as it was two days earlier (CED March 29 p2). But the black 3DS fell from No. 2 to No. 6 and the blue 3DS tumbled from No. 4 to No. 10.

EBay had listed the Wii and other new game systems at vastly inflated prices after their launches. But most 3DS pricing at eBay on Wednesday afternoon was in line with the system’s suggested retail price, and the highest number of bids on 3DS auctions were made on units that came in at prices below $249.99. For instance, there were 35 bids on a 3DS listed at only $190.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told us he was “surprised” how plentiful 3DS retail supplies were. One guess, he said, was that Nintendo put “limited marketing” efforts behind the device until late last week, and consumers generally were “unaware” of its debut. Nintendo knows it’s “probably supply constrained due to the disasters in Japan, so they may have pulled back on marketing figuring they are going to sell out anyway,” he said.

The 3DS has remained the top-selling videogame system in Japan since its launch there late last month, according to Media Create data. But sales have slipped there each week since launch, coming in at 61,400 units in the most recent week (CED March 28 p7) after selling about 374,800 in its launch week (CED March 7 p9).