Nintendo Officially Disapproves Of "Bundling"

Bundling may be a popular tactic retailers employ to force customers to spend more money, but Nintendo of America’s celeb-President Reggie Fils-Aime has come out against it, finally: “Retailers have already been given feedback that we are not big fans of that,” he told Reuters this week. Is the pre-purchase deal with GameStop one way Nintendo is preventing that from happening this December? If anyone actually buys one of those empty DVD cases, let us know if they try to upsell you to a bundle.

We think it masks some of the price advantage we have versus our competition and, frankly, the consumer should decide what they want,” Fils-Aime said.

Asked if Nintendo had threatened such retailers with fewer Wii shipments, Fils-Aime said only that the company carried a lot of weight as maker of one of the most highly sought items this holiday season.

“We don’t have to remind retailers of the strength we have right now. We are simply making an observation and that reinforces our point quite nicely with retailers,” Fils-Aime said.

Fils-Aime also said that Nintendo is having trouble getting its supply and demand curves in sync. Maybe they should release a networked DS game that crowdsources Nintendo’s supply chain for them—we couldn’t do any worse than Nintendo has.

“Nintendo says Wii shortages hurt planning” [Reuters]

RELATED
“Reggie (Softly) Threatens Bundling Wii Retailers” [Kotaku]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.