Amazon UK are sold out of the Wii U version of the game and have stopped all pre-orders. The situation with breath of the wild is reminiscent of Twilight Princess where it was released on 2 systems with a much greater push on the newer system, making the older one harder to find. Do you think this could be a similar situation? Amazon UK selling out is obviously not indicative of a global trend, but I was surprised especially since the Wii U didn't sell very well. It may be the case that there is a more limited amount of the older version being produced.

I'm not surprised since they aren't even selling brand new Wii U systems on shelves. Why would they dump more Wii U copies of Breath of the Wild for a system they have already abandoned? Much smarter to force people who have Wii Us to buy a Switch and play it there.

Sounds like Nintendo being Nintendo these days. Under-produce something. Cause a shortage. Demand increases. People clamor. Free marketing. It seems to work for them. My news feed is regularly inundated with NES Classic (lack of) availability articles. Not very consumer friendly of them.

is there no digital version of the game on wii u?

Could be worse seeing as Gamecube outsold Wii U.

I was talking to someone about this yesterday and we pointed this out. Barring some weird download space requirement, you will almost certainly be able to get Breath of the Wild the Wii-U eshop. So it's not quite the same as with Twilight Princess.

I preordered the game in January 2016 so I imagine they are well aware of the strong demand for it. Maybe they didn't order in much more than the number they needed to cover the pre-orders.

@sinusoidal: Not very producer friendly for them either.

My main problem with this is you can't even get a Switch anymore, it's been sold out since the day it went up for preorder.

I just got a second email from Game.co.uk saying that the price of the Wii U version has gone up again, so I'm glad I pre-ordered it when I did

I just checked 4 big retailers here in the UK and they are all still offering pre-orders of the Switch. Is this another one of those weird US shortages? Like how you guys still cant get certain amiibo?

@werupenstein said:

In England pre-orders opened up again everywhere and they are pushing them hard, suggesting that they must have a lot left to fill. Maybe people cancelled after their initial rush of excitement, it's hard to say.

That would make a big difference. I was more asking out of curiosity and not out of fear of shortage. I do wonder if they are limiting production of the physical version because they're pulling away from the Wii U as much as possible.

From a business sense it doesn't make sense to produce a lot of copies for the wii u. You want to drive people to go for the switch version instead so that they support your hardware release and future software releases as well, but also don't want to leave wii u owners with no options since you said there would be a wii u version. They probably ran the numbers on how much stock would be worth producing of the wii u version. It's not likely to be as high as most people probably want, but that's just the harsh reality of profit. You can always download anyway aside from space or data limit issues, so it won't be impossible to find. It will probably just easier to find a switch version on shelves than a wii u version, and that is very much intentional on their part. I can't fault them for that really.

@mezza: I agree with you, but I don't think it's as much trying to drive people to the Switch out of force as much as it is not wanting to pay to have stock sit in a warehouse while anyone can download the digital version anyway. The scenario where someone really wants to play BOTW on WiiU and can't find it on store shelves, and actually buys a whole new system rather than wait and look for it used somewhere is going to be a fairly rare enough scenario to where Nintendo isn't going to expect any discernable bump in their sales for the new system because of it.

Only Amazon UK sold out. I was able to find the Wii U version available in the following places (with extra goodies as described from this Nintendo UK page):

• Nintendo UK Store - includes a T-Shirt: £59.99
• Argos - includes 2 Art Cards: £47.99
• ShopTo - includes a pin-badge: £48.99
• Gainger Games - includes wristbands: £48.99
• Game - includes a keyring and poster: £59.99
• Tesco : £48.00
• Zavvi : £49.99

It doesn't look like they have limited stock at all. Amazon just probably gave them a bad deal so Nintendo prioritised elsewhere.

@brendan: For sure, it is largely a question of how much stock they can likely sell of the wii u version in the first place. I mainly just mentioned it because having backstock of the switch version tends to look better for stores than having backstock of the wii u version since wii u's are out of production. Having the Legend of Zelda and Switch paired together for window shoppers and kids to see is a more desirable outcome to aim for than Zelda and Wii U paired together. It subtly encourages people to think of Zelda as a switch game rather than a Wii U version. We know better of course, but we follow things more closely than some others might. Having more physical discs than you need for the wii u in that case doesn't make much sense.

@dixavd: wow the prices on those seem insane considering my pre-order was £40. Looks like I got a bargain. I also got a further £10 off because amazon had a promotion that day, so it's more like £30.

I was actually worried about this as well. For collection purposes I want a physical copy but I imagine Nintendo is going to be relatively tight on the supply of Wii U copies since retailers will be loath to take up shelf space with a console that Nintendo has declared dead after this game.

@meteora3255: Dixavd posted a bunch of retailers with stock, even though they're way too expensive. I may well sell my Wii U copy once I get a Switch later in the year so you might find some cheaper copies on ebay later.

The Game Collection also have it for £44.99 which is the cheapest I could find. I was going to get this digitally but fuck paying £60.

Well that's pretty damn annoying, and you can't even order from the UK amazon if you live in the US because they won't ship it there.