Selling Wii illegally?

[med2003]

OK. Here's a BBC article relating to the PS2 in 2004.

BBC NEWS | Business | Retailers cash in on PlayStation

As you can see a quote from a spokesman for Dixons says the following:

"There's nothing in law to stop us from bundling, if we want to," he said, " and sometimes we think there's better value in a bundle.

"But if a customer wants to buy just the console, we'll sell them just the console."

Therefore Gamestation could sell you it singley if they wanted to, they just don't want to or more importantly, have to.

[kopite]

I can't believe these are selling out for a second xmas... they're such a novelty item.

I think the very fact that it has sold out for a 2nd xmas shows its not a novelty item otherwise surely ppl would have moved on to the next novelty by now.


It has always annoyed me the fact that they only sell things as part of a bundle like this but As has been stated before its not illegal.

IMO the even worse than selling in a forced bundle is some shops where they are selling the console on its own for over 300(Microdirect are doing this and scan are selling for a similar price) At least as part of the bundles you usually get a choice of games in gamestation

[staffsMike]

I am only speaking from what i've seen over the last year.

5 bought by people I know...5 collecting dust.

[Agent]

I am only speaking from what i've seen over the last year.

5 bought by people I know...5 collecting dust.

Tell them to sell them, they will make a killing

[Stoo]

The thing is people still buy the bundles even though everyone hates it.

If everyone stopped buying the bundles then they wouldn't do it, but unfortunately they do buy them, and law isn't on the consumer's side on this one.

I could understand it if it was a single bundle like a pack of jaffa cakes, but the fact is, it's not and it's like walking into burtons to buy some trousers for work, only for them to tell you that you can only buy them if you buy the suit, the shirt, the tie, the shoes and the cufflinks.

It's a sharp practise, and one that royally narks me, so I do what I can and vote with my wallet, and not buy them.

The bigger question is why do nintendo say they can't manufacture and stock them quick enough and are charging twice the price they said they would for them, when it's little more than a gamecube in a new suit.

It's fairly obvious that they're holding the supply to force the demand, and milk the market.

bah.

[Agent]

If GAME have them in stock, its VERY easy to get them to sell it seperately....if you know how

[Stoo]

Does it involve umbrellas being inserted into rectums unless it's sold unbundled?

[Magnets]

The bigger question is why do nintendo say they can't manufacture and stock them quick enough and are charging twice the price they said they would for them, when it's little more than a gamecube in a new suit.

It's fairly obvious that they're holding the supply to force the demand, and milk the market.

bah.

I can't understand either, how they are still in short supply 1 year after release. It's just insane.

But how is it in Nintendo's best interest to keep supply low? arn't the ebayers and retailers gaining the most?

[Stoo]

Nope, nintendo are - the retailer margins on hardware are really low, so if they constrain the supply which in turn increases the demand they can artificially keep the price high and cream off the profit - each Wii costs bugger all to make as it's all based on old easy to produce tech, unlike the 360 and PS3.

If they fed the demand properly at a cheaper price I think they'd see the interest drop away very quickly, so they'll hobble the supply chain and milk it for all it's worth to recoup costs for the next next-gen battle - they've been relying on the gameboy to keep the coffers full for ages as they've effectively had two lame duck main consoles in a row before.

[Agent]

An orignal Xbox (not 360) used to give the retailers about £15 profit at best. Most of the time it was lower than this when other costs like transport and returns were taken into consideration.

[Whiternoise]

If GAME have them in stock, its VERY easy to get them to sell it seperately....if you know how

Hah you just try it

Seriously though, we're not allowed to sell the consoles on their own!

[BlackDwarf]

We have this same thing at Game.... Who incidentally own Game Station.

For example, our store is all out of Pink NDS's, and the only bundle we have Pink NDS's in is £149.99 with 3 games.

However, if the customer insists on just wanting the Pink NDS, we have to sell it to them, for £99.99.

So yeah, I'd tell them to bugger off if they're trying to force you to buy a bundle. We dislike it as staff (its all about addons, games, cases, memory cards etc), so it screws with our figures, and, at the end of the day, we're a company out to make money, so.

[Agent]

Hah you just try it

Seriously though, we're not allowed to sell the consoles on their own!

Exactly, you're not, but the people above you are. Its just knowing how to get to these people

[BlackDwarf]

Whiternoise.... is your store policy different to every other in the UK, or are your managers just tight?

[Agent]

Can't speak for Whiternoise, but regardless of what HO used to say, one of my managers was a "bundle only" guy.

[Whiternoise]

Store policy is store policy.. it should really be the same across the board.

We get shipped these "deluxe" bundles and they have to be sold that way. It's a way of conning people out of money in my opinion, but neither myself or my manager have much power to change it. Loads of people complained to us after GameStation forced the deals on people, interestingly, they had them in stock for at least 3 days longer than usual..

From what i know, every GAME store in the country got an email saying no Wii's until further notice (couple of weeks ago), at this time we still sold the console on it's own and we also had a few (fairly good) deals. Then they said 3 weeks, then we got some in the week after (consoles on their own, so naturally they flew out the door). Now this week we had 30 in on monday, all had to be sold as bundles..

Hehe BlackDwarf, APEC for the win! I'm bloody sick of forcing people to buy accessories and preowned and god damn GameCare..