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I'm getting really tired of Nintendo, for one big reason: I can't buy any of their products.
I'm sure you remember the buzz around the launch of the Wii. The Wii was huge, everyone was talking about it, and it was a giant success for Nintendo. At the the time, I really wanted one, but I wasn't able to get one until a couple years after launch. "Not a big deal", I thought, "it was a huge seller, so it makes sense that stores couldn't keep it in stock." Now, I'm not sure if this was actually the case, or it was intentional under stocking by Nintendo, but Nintendo seems to have taken this idea and run with it in later years.
First, Amiibo -- Just like with the Wii they were in demand, but it was impossible to get certain ones anywhere To be fair, this one didn't really affect me as much, since I didn't care as much about amiibo. However, many people were affected deeply. To me, this is doubly egregious on Nintendo's part, because amiibos were tied to in-game functionality. If you can't find a physical amiibo, you're literally locked out of in-game content that's already on the disk. To me, this is worse than on-disk DLC.
Second, the NES Mini; I still don't have one and I never will. I find the NES Mini to be especially frustrating, because it's such a cool product, but it's very obviously just a marketing tool for Nintendo. It makes sense, the WiiU was dead and Nintendo wanted to remind people that they existed before the launch of the Switch. However, from the get-go, it's been impossible to find, and now they've been discontinued. If you really want one, you can find them for $300 online from a scalper, but I refuse to pay money for a scalper. (I espeically refuse to pay $300 for a $60 product) "Oh well", says Nintendo, "guess you'll just have to buy those games individually for Virtual Console." Just load up a Raspberry Pi with RetroPie and be done with it.
The salt in the wound for me specifically, is that the product line I did support, the WiiU, ended up being overall lackluster and dropped fairly quickly. It's especially stung lately, since games I bought it for are having their WiiU versions cancelled, or the WiiU version is inferior. I realize this is partially my fault, but it's still partially Nintendo's fault do doing a poor job of marketing and supporting the WiiU. I give Nintendo credit for Breath of the Wild though, they did a good job there.
And all of this is why I'm holding off on getting a Switch until there's something I really want for it.
