| Nintendo
Assault |
Sales Tactics |
A number of
items shown in and around the recent Spaceworld exhibition have been given ship dates and
pricing. Pre-orders at the vendor level closed last night but we have submitted healthy
quantities for the ones we think will perform well. Sin & Punishment
looks to continue the developer Treasure's triumphant run in virtual space. Monster
Tactics is another good one that should keep portable gamers interested and busy.
As usual, each Nintendo first party product comes tagged with a
"restricted" quantity clause which means that Nintendo will supply their own
software and hardware in partial shipments. This happened with the debut of the Color
Gameboy and Nintendo 64, the Gameboy Camera, anything Pokemon and other products where
there was substantial demand. Sony may have taken a page from this book with their
"botched" PS2 American debut.
 |
| GBC Monster Tactics |
Y3800 |
| Dungeon exploration |
Nintendo |
Nov 21 |
| Pokemon Telecom Cable
Pikachu |
Y1980 |
| Link Cable for GBC |
Kotobuki |
Dec 14 |
| GBC Wizardry Vampire
Stick of Revival |
Y3980 |
| Role playing fantasy |
Starfish |
Dec 21 |
| N64 Sin & Punishment |
Y6800 |
| Shooting in a futuristic scene |
Nintendo |
Nov 21 |
| N64 Banjo & Kazooie
Adventure |
Y6800 |
| 3-D platform action sequel |
Nintendo |
Nov 27 |
| N64 Mario Party 3 |
Y5800 |
| Mini game bonanza |
Nintendo |
Dec 07 |
|
|
Nintendo have a fairly clever marketing scheme but one that any vendor worth it's salt has
seen time and again and prepares for accordingly. NCS was not so clever in the earlier
years when the Nintendo 64 debuted in Japan. Pre-orders and demand ran red hot. The N64
would change the world as we knew it, or so the line went. In the first week of release,
supplies of the N64 were reported as sparse due to partial shipments of the unit. Buy,
buy, buy was the battle cry and we brought in double the amount of consoles and software
we needed for fear of selling out with the quickness. Supplies were sparse indeed... for a
week. Big numbers hit the market afterwards, sating demand and driving high import prices
into the ground. That was an expensive lesson but one that had to be learned. That was our
baptism of fire in Nintendo sales tactics. |
| Neo
Geo KOF 2000 Update |
Retrofit |
New
pre-orders for the Neo Geo version of KOF 2K have been strong over the past week. Note
that the production quantity should be finalized during the week of October 23 and our
final pricing for the cartridge will be posted once this information is available. NCS
anticipates no problems in supplying any and all current pre-orders for this product,
including vendor requests but we do notice a heavy influx of new orders recently from
around the world. Pre-orders will close when and if the supply situation looks precarious
since news of the game has circulated and many parties are now submitting their
reservations. If you have previously pre-ordered the game anytime in the past year, you
are on our reservation list and NCS will send out a mailing in two weeks once
the price is set. If you pre-ordered the game and do not receive this mailing for some
reason or other, please contact us to assure a spot on our reservation schedule. We'll
post a reminder in any case when the mailing has been sent.
King of Fighters 2000 will ship on December 21, 2000 at a Japanese yen retail
of Y38,000. NCS expects domestic pricing to settle at US$319. New
pre-orders may be submitted by e-mail to ncs@escape.com.
|
A good number of customers alerted us to an auction going on EBay for an AES version of
King of Fighters 2000. Some asked us for commentary, others for an explanation, and one
wanted to know which authorities to call.
In short, the only official SNK version of KOF 2000 available at this time is
the MVS version, released for the coin-op market. There is a way to hack the MVS version
to make it look and work as an AES cartridge. Yes, it is an expensive item to produce and
no, we don't think the bidding will exceed $2000. |
| Dreamcast
Dead or Alive 2 Update |
A DOA2 Year |
| Tecmo
obviously made the right decision when they decided to release DOA2 in Japan as the game
is sold out through all of our standard and non-standard channels. Even those distribution
houses who usually over-order everything, get stuck with overstock and need sell-through
support weeks after the fact. Then there are the nimble companies who can usually forage
about and come up with some, any quantity at any price. They have not been able to help
either which is uncommon for a recent game. We cannot even purchase the regular edition at
this point but we look for some supply over the next couple of weeks. No one saw this
coming and now everyone is scrambling for non-existent stock. Perhaps we'll have to
consult oracles as standard business policy to divine the selling strength of sleepers. |
When the Japanese version of Playstation 2 Dead
or Alive 2 Hardcore ships in December, it will mark the fifth incarnation of the
game this year. It started with Dead or Alive 2 on the USA Dreamcast a
couple of months ago and the ball has been rolling since. Know this, sex sells and
fighting sells. Put them together and you have dynamite. |
|
