SNES Classic Pre-Orders Were Up... and Now They're Gone

SNES Classic pre-orders were breifly live at Best Buy and Amazon with little prior announcement. As per Nintendo tradition, stock quickly came and went for the little throwback console series.

Nintendo issued a statement on Facebook earlier this month that pre-orders would go up some time in late August. That time in August appears to be now as Best Buy was the first retailer to put up a pre-order at around 10am PT, followed by a surprise Amazon listing at around 1:30am PT. Both pre-orders came and went after about half and hour, but their surprise listing caught many people off-guard, or sleeping.

The Amazon listing is even sepearate from the listing many people had saved, instead choosing to re-label under something called "GameTrust." While the link for an SNES under the GameTrust name are sold out, this SNES Classic listing is still live though it could be worthless now.

This situation is as confusing as the time Walmart accidentally started taking orders last July, which became a whole issue in and of itself.

Walmart started taking pre-orders back in July for the SNES Classic. Unfortunately, some customers began complaining about cancelled orders due to payment issues, while others still retained their pre-orders. Then Walmart went ahead and cancelled every SNES Classic order, citing a technical error on their end for mistakenly putting up orders too early.

The SNES Classic is Nintendo's follow-up to the massively popular NES Classic system which offered a miniaturized version of the classic console, pre-loaded with old favorites. The SNES Classic is no different, with a mini version of the SNES (different regions get different variants which is cool). You can read our preview of the SNES Classic here.

The NES Classic was a runaway success, but unfortunately supply could never meet demand. Nintendo retroactively claimed that the NES Classic was always meant to be a limited item, with production of the console ending in April of this year after months of shortages. Nintendo says that they will be producing more of the SNES Classic than the NES Classic, but the pre-order situation is a bit disheartening.

It's unclear if retailers are just being cautious about its stock so as to not have a repeat of the NES Classic, or if the competition for SNES Classic units is just as hellish. Either way, expect to see SNES Classics from resellers at a presumably huge mark-up.