Nintendo Switch
Jan. 14th, 2017 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI had to work on Friday, and I didn't want to get myself too psyched up by the Nintendo Switch presentation broadcast to fall asleep, so I skipped it and went to bed.
When I woke up at six the next morning, the Nintendo Switch was sold out. Everywhere.
The Master Edition of Breath of the Wild was also sold out. Everywhere. Even in Canada.
On one hand, I don't care. I will get the Switch eventually, and despite being a huge nerd I have no use for video game memorabilia cluttering my home and office. I've had the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild preordered for months, so it's not like I'm not going to be able to play the actual game when it comes out.
On the other hand, I've had the Nintendo Switch listing pages of several online retailers bookmarked since June, and I checked them almost every single day, just in case. To have made diligent efforts in tracking this console for eight months only to miss my opportunity in an eight-hour window is beyond frustrating.
This is an important life lesson, I think. In order to succeed, you really have to be at the right place at the right time. If you're not lucky, or if you don't possess sufficient foresight, or if you don't have insider information, no amount of persistence or hard work will help you achieve your goals. Malcolm Gladwell wrote an entire book about this.
I think it's high time I accepted that, at this point in my life, I am not an outlier. I am never going to be in the right place at the right time. And that's okay! It has nothing to do with me. So why am I working so hard? I should really spend more time chilling out and enjoying myself.
And honestly? I'm not actually that excited about the new Zelda game anyway.Let me tell you about the sexism.
When I woke up at six the next morning, the Nintendo Switch was sold out. Everywhere.
The Master Edition of Breath of the Wild was also sold out. Everywhere. Even in Canada.
On one hand, I don't care. I will get the Switch eventually, and despite being a huge nerd I have no use for video game memorabilia cluttering my home and office. I've had the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild preordered for months, so it's not like I'm not going to be able to play the actual game when it comes out.
On the other hand, I've had the Nintendo Switch listing pages of several online retailers bookmarked since June, and I checked them almost every single day, just in case. To have made diligent efforts in tracking this console for eight months only to miss my opportunity in an eight-hour window is beyond frustrating.
This is an important life lesson, I think. In order to succeed, you really have to be at the right place at the right time. If you're not lucky, or if you don't possess sufficient foresight, or if you don't have insider information, no amount of persistence or hard work will help you achieve your goals. Malcolm Gladwell wrote an entire book about this.
I think it's high time I accepted that, at this point in my life, I am not an outlier. I am never going to be in the right place at the right time. And that's okay! It has nothing to do with me. So why am I working so hard? I should really spend more time chilling out and enjoying myself.
And honestly? I'm not actually that excited about the new Zelda game anyway.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-14 02:29 pm (UTC)I feel your pain on missing that opportunity, though. Apart from the generally applicable life lesson to be learned, I experienced something similar when the Fire Emblem Fates Limited Edition was announced. Fates's main gimmick was having multiple full-length campaigns that had to be bought as DLC, and the Limited Edition packaged all three -- including the "true ending"-ish one most consumers would have to wait weeks to be able to download -- into one physical cartridge. It was the same price as one would normally pay for all three campaigns, and was honestly just a useful buy.
So, y'know, it sold out in an hour or two. While I was at work.
I'm not still bitter, but I can remember being bitter about it. So, sympathies.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-14 06:27 pm (UTC)No seriously, this story viscerally upset me.
I have a friend from college who works at Nintendo Germany, and he just posted something really interesting about the "limited" nature of limited editions on Facebook. Essentially, larger gaming companies need to maintain diverse product portfolios, meaning that they can't put all of their eggs in one (Zelda-shaped) basket. The point of engineering artificial scarcity is to create a "hardcore" demographic for a property while alienating the more "casual" players. This is why there will never be super special limited edition of the Mario games, which are, for the most part, targeted at "casual" players. It actually makes more financial sense for there to be a "Zelda" demographic and a "Mario" demographic because, if both franchises appealed to the same group of people, then they would be competing with each other.
In other words, companies like Nintendo are well aware of the hazing effect of limited editions, by which the people who didn't get the thing feel bitter and left out, while the people who did get the thing feel like insiders and true fans who have suffered yet succeeded.
Yay capitalism lol.
This is just hearsay, of course, and I'm not sure if it's actually true. So... grain of salt, and all that.