Nintendo appears to be facing new supply struggles as two import retailers have reported the company is having trouble filling release day pre-orders of the hotly-anticipated title Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii.
The game is expected to be one of the most popular Wii releases this year, having received a perfect score from influential Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. The game has already experienced one delay, pushed back to a March 9 release date in North America, while Europe is expected to see the game sometime in the second quarter.
According to a GamesIndustry report, Play Asia has posted a message on its website saying, “Please note that Nintendo has badly cut pre-orders placed by all distributors and is only shipping very limited quantities into the market this week. Our first shipment of Super Smash Bros. Brawl has reached us today, only covering about 15 percent of all pre-orders that we have received.”
Another company, National Console Support, was somewhat more upbeat, suggesting that sufficient quantities could still be received in time for the release date. “Our initial shipments of Smash Bros. are expected to arrive on Thursday of this week. We were able to obtain more copies than we originally expected after receiving the bad news from suppliers on Sunday night,” the company said.
“Some of our suppliers in Hong Kong won’t be getting any copies until this weekend which makes it more of a delay than an actual shortage. We also note that most of our Japanese vendors will receive the bulk of their supplies on February 2 and February 4 which is a few days later than the official street date,” the report noted.
