Holland’s Wii launch marred by false promises

Tipster Grannd sends us some sad news from the Netherlands about the Wii launch in The Hague. A less than stellar delivery to Gameshop, one of the game stores there, has prompted the store to not sell any Wii units or accessories, at least for now.

While Gameshop’s website is in Dutch, Grannd manage to give us the gist of the issue. Nintendo seems to have promised the Gameshop stores 600 units, and around 400 pre-orders were made by people based on that assumption.

The problem comes when, as Grannd tells us, “a week ahead of the release, Nintendo told Gameshop that they could only deliver 10 (!) Wiis”. Since Gameshop has three stores, that means three units per store, and 390 customers feeling very annoyed, not to mention the folks at Gameshop who’ll have to work with the customer service nightmare this might entail. As a result of this, Gameshop opted not to sell their units, nor offer any accessories or games for the console.

While some of you might be thinking that something of that sort is unfair for the store to do, you can also see why they’re doing this temporary boycott of sorts. Who wouldn’t be rather annoyed at only finding out a week before launch of something like this? Perhaps the problems of next-gen launches have taught them the value of sticking to their guns, even if their own customers don’t agree with the methods. Waiting for Nintendo to actually send them the goods they asked for seems safer than fans fighting over a console, at least.

If any of you folks know Dutch, we’d appreciate a translation of Gameshop’s statement at the source link. Translation sites can only do so much, you know.

Tipster Grannd sends us some sad news from the Netherlands about the Wii launch in The Hague. A less than stellar delivery to Gameshop, one of the game stores there, has prompted the store to not sell any Wii units or accessories, at least for now.

While Gameshop’s website is in Dutch, Grannd manage to give us the gist of the issue. Nintendo seems to have promised the Gameshop stores 600 units, and around 400 pre-orders were made by people based on that assumption.

The problem comes when, as Grannd tells us, “a week ahead of the release, Nintendo told Gameshop that they could only deliver 10 (!) Wiis”. Since Gameshop has three stores, that means three units per store, and 390 customers feeling very annoyed, not to mention the folks at Gameshop who’ll have to work with the customer service nightmare this might entail. As a result of this, Gameshop opted not to sell their units, nor offer any accessories or games for the console.

While some of you might be thinking that something of that sort is unfair for the store to do, you can also see why they’re doing this temporary boycott of sorts. Who wouldn’t be rather annoyed at only finding out a week before launch of something like this? Perhaps the problems of next-gen launches have taught them the value of sticking to their guns, even if their own customers don’t agree with the methods. Waiting for Nintendo to actually send them the goods they asked for seems safer than fans fighting over a console, at least.

If any of you folks know Dutch, we’d appreciate a translation of Gameshop’s statement at the source link. Translation sites can only do so much, you know.