By Both companies deny the claims
- by Jim Norman
If you found yourself trying to pick up a Switch 2 across the pond in recent months, then it will be old news to you that the console, and many first-party games prior to it, was not available directly through Amazon US. It felt like a baffling omission, but a recent report from Bloomberg (paywalled) might give some explanation of why this was the case — even if the two companies involved have denied it.
Bloomberg spoke to “a person familiar with the situation” to try to get to the bottom of why Amazon US missed out on hosting Nintendo sales of its own, and it reportedly all comes down to a sales dispute between the companies around how the online storefront handles its third-party sellers.
According to the report, Nintendo pulled Amazon US’ official sales privileges after clocking that “unauthorised sales” were appearing on the site, undercutting Nintendo’s prices. The anonymous source claimed that select sellers were bulk-buying Nintendo products in Southeast Asia, before flogging them at a reduced rate on Amazon US.
The storefront apparently offered to attach labels guaranteeing a product’s authenticity, but Nintendo instead opted to pull all of its official sales from the site, leaving only those sold by third parties.
Now, as we said right from the jump, both Nintendo and Amazon US deny these claims. “There is no such fact. We do not disclose details of negotiations or contracts with retailers,” a Nintendo spokesperson told Bloomberg. The Amazon spokesperson similarly stated that “the claims made by Bloomberg regarding our relationship with Nintendo are inaccurate,” though there are no specifics about how they are inaccurate.
Last year, it appeared that Nintendo’s so-called “freeze-out” of Amazon US was coming to an end, as copies of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom began to crop up on the site with Amazon listed as the seller. But months on, very little seems to have changed. You can still find first-party Nintendo products a-plenty on regional Amazon stores like the UK, Canadian, and Japanese sites, but the lion’s share of US listings still come from third-party sellers.
For now, it seems, you’re still better off braving the likes of Best Buy, Target, GameStop and Walmart in the US if you want to ensure the Nintendo guarantee.
Does this report sound feasible to you? Do you hope to see first-party Nintendo sales return to Amazon US soon? Let us know in the comments.
[source bloomberg.com]
Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since.