I ask because it still seems like none of the electronics and games retailers near me (near Toronto, Ontario) seem to have any copies unless you're at the store within a few hours of when they get their like weekly shipment.

While I expect this of Atlus or XSEED games, or cult-favourites-that-still-have-overall-low-sales-numbers like Ace Attorney games or Ghost Trick, the Fire Emblem series has been steadily growing since it came to the West, and I swear I saw copies of Shadow Dragon EVERYWHERE for months and months after it launched. I don't think that game reviewed particularly badly, nor did this one, so I can't imagine they intended to ship dramatically less copies of Awakening.

It really seems like there must still be massive shipping delay/production problems or something. Is there a recent statement from Nintendo on the matter?

I'm assuming you are talking about Fire Emblem? You put the thread in general discussion.

If so I was able to get a copy fairly easily at my local store but they didn't have very many of them so maybe they didn't produce very many.

@triple07 said:

Dammit, I initially attached it to Fire Emblem: Awakening, but then my thread title was too long when I hit submit, and every time you hit submit, it resets back to being in General Discussion.

It's not impossible to find. It's right there on the eShop in infinite supply.

@bisonhero: I went looking for a copy a week ago and the dude at EB told me about how they were instructed to release the game before street date by corporate and now Nintendo is not going to be giving them any more copies of the game to sell because of that. I asked him if this was just in Winnipeg and he said it was probably all EBs in Canada. So maybe don't check EB? Or ask a dude working there if this is total BS. I can't speak to any other stores you may be going to other than that I couldn't find anything at BestBuy or Walmart and amazon.ca still doesn't have any copies for sale.

In the end I couldn't find it anywhere and bought it digitally despite not being on board with how Nintendo ties downloads to handhelds instead of accounts.

There was a week between launch and when I got my copy from Amazon. That's probably pretty telling. There's this article from the beginning of the month, so my best guess is that everything's still being affected by shipping issues.

I believe the shipping issues are slowly getting worked out. I was only able to find a physical copy last night in my area, but there were only two copies left when I arrived.

I think that there is a serious shipping problem. I bought the game digitally, but out of curiosity have been checking store stock regularly at Best Buy, Futureshop, Chapters/Indigo, EB Games and WalMart. I live in Central Alberta, Canada in a mid-sized town and haven't seen the game in stock online or in local stores. I've noticed that major urban centres have had local copies here and there, (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, etc...) but aside from a few preorders, I don't think the game reached my area at all, which is ridiculous given the demand I've seen. I'd have a hard time believing that they intentionally produced so few copies of this game, particularly when, as far as I can tell, some places didn't get enough copies to fill preorders.

Unless we want to get in to conspiracy theory territory and posit that Nintendo intentionally shipped few copies to somehow glean better information about digital sales and the eShop.

@cathryn: Yeah, I got the Best Buy dude to pull up their internal inventory thing, and literally no Best Buy location in all of Canada had a copy of it in stock. This was maybe like 5 days ago (meaning like 2 weeks after the game had come out).

The sad irony is that retailers (or Nintendo somehow?) will take a huge loss on all of these retail copies whenever they do arrive, because I have to imagine that the people that are in-the-know about Fire Emblem probably want it enough that they've just bought it on the eShop by now, so nobody is going to buy the physical copies when stores finally get any copies. Then again, Nintendo seems to hate dropping MSRP on any games they publish, so maybe it will just languish on store shelves at $39.99 for the next year, as nobody buys the physical copies because everybody has digital copies of it.

I'm really trying to avoid downloading retail games because A) I can't lend them to my friend to try out when they're bound to my SD card, and B) I'm trying to see if I can go the whole 3DS lifespan with the 4 GB SD card I started with, so I'm mostly trying to only put eShop games on the SD card. But my patience only lasts so long, and seriously, Nintendo fucked up the launch of this game so badly and I have no idea how long I'll have to wait.

I asked a worker at a nearby Best Buy here in Vancouver what was up and he said, he "wasn't sure but he thinks games are hard to find when they're translated from Japanese." Soooo....

Yeah, they are usually supes dumb, but my guy seemed competent for once, and I could actually see the monitor he was looking this up on, and he seemed to be in the proper backend Best Buy inventory database program thing, and he appeared to have properly pulled up the Fire Emblem results, and there were just no copies anywhere.

But yeah, oh man, your guy sounds super useless.

I finally got some cash together and manged to find a copy. The "ghetto" Target not too far from my house is apparently the only store in the area that still had any copies left. I can't wait to start playing.

Out of curiosity, what is the reason that people seem to prefer hunting down a physical copy of this game? Wouldn't it be infinitely easier to just stay in your pajamas and download it from the e-shop?

@marmalade said:

People have issues with how e-shop works since it doesn't tie purchases to an account, just the device.

I looked for a physical copy on sites daily for over 2 weeks before giving up and just getting it on e-shop. Some clown is still trying to sell it for $90 on Amazon.

@marmalade said:

Personally I don't buy games digitally unless there is significant price difference vs the physical copy. If I'm paying full price I want to have an actual thing. Also I've got a bit of collector mentality.

I managed to get lucky last week and found a copy at Gamestop. The employee there mentioned it was the only one the store received, which is insane.

However, if going digital is your only way of getting this, don't hesitate. As someone who's not usually into these types of games, it's fantastic.

@slay3r1583 said:

Yeah, that. Also I may want to lend Fire Emblem to my roommate once I finish it. Also I'd rather leave space on my SD card open for actual eShop games, instead of filling it with the much bigger downloadable retail games; if I can make it through the whole 3DS XL lifespan without having to buy a bigger SD card than the one that comes with the system, I'll be happy.

I haven't been able to find any in Toronto either.

I'm in the Vancouver, BC area and it seems like Best Buy and Future Shop received a huge shipment yesterday. All the stores located near me were in stock for about 15 minutes before being sold out/reserved. Just got to keep at it I guess, I managed to snag a reservation that I'll be picking up tonight!

I just checked and the Futureshop in Red Deer (Central AB) has some reservable copies in. First hard copies I've seen so far in my area.

Looks like maybe the problem's started to sort itself out.

I finally got the game last Friday, and I've been looking through Targets, Best Buys, and Game Stops in Los Angeles area by calling them. Every time I get a lead, the cashier told me someone already bought it when I arrive there.

I'm lucky to get a physical copy before March 1st where Marth's DLC is no longer free. A Game Stop representative told me that Nintendo is doing something odd such as only giving out physical copies for pre-orders in the future and getting everyone hoping on eshop.

Edit:

proofread.

Well, I was checking the Best Buy website and finally found a store one town over that had a copy I could reserve online, and I picked it up today. So yay me! However, this whole situation is still really fucked, and there are not nearly enough copies of this game on store shelves.

I'm extremely skeptical that they'll continue to intentionally do that, but if that is true, while that does save Nintendo a bunch of manufacturing and shipping charges, it's also them basically admitting defeat, because the ONLY people buying Fire Emblem Awakening are probably people who already know the Fire Emblem series is pretty rad. By taking it off store shelves, you're lowering the exposure of the series to "Joe Walmart-Shopper", and you're not getting more people interested in Fire Emblem. Sure, places like Steam are doing huge business and people look at the Steam Store often, but I'm still willing to bet that a massive amount of 3DS owners do not check the eShop very frequently (even though the quality is LEAGUES better than DSiWare).

Anyway, while apparently nobody has any articles to link me to where Nintendo addresses these shortages (I would even settle for a Twitter response from Reggie or something), I will say that @Tonyyj gave me the best advice, in terms of "obsessively check websites, and hope you can reserve a copy".

I finally got it, oh man. Last one on the store shelf.

@bisonhero:

Yeah, I'm not sure about his statement because he was trying to get me to place a pre-order on future 3DS titles such as Pokemon X and Y, Donkey Kong Returns, and Luigi's Mansion. I forgot to mention that. Sorry about that.

@evanbower:

Cool! The guy told me I got the last one.

@takashichea: Yeah, I highly doubt that GameStop guy has any idea what he is talking about. The average GameStop employee seems far less informed than, say, the majority of users on this forum. I was more treating it as a hypothetical despite the dubious source, just to explain my thoughts on why I sure as hell hope Nintendo isn't crazy enough to push the eShop by limiting physical supplies of a game.

They're all sold out in my area, aside from one copy in one store that was already reserved. Multiple stores also told me the game's been discontinued and no more copies are being made.

I do have an (out-of-stock) order in with Amazon, so if they ever get more copies, I might see one that way. But EB Games, Future Shop, and Best Buy are all showing not available. :(