 Hey everyone, I am Nathaniel Rubeljantz and you are watching Nintendo Prime. We got four stories for you today in this episode of Prime News. But before we get into those stories, I need to remind you of two giveaways we have going on right now. One of them is for three copies of Super Mario 3D All-Stars. There's a link in the description to enter that one. Also, we are giving away a Switch Lite. And also two games of choice. To enter that giveaway, there is a list of things to do down in the description. I wish all of you guys luck. Winners are announced on October 1st. Let's just get into our first story. And that is that Xbox is attempting to combat scalpers. Now, we all know about the PlayStation 5 pre-order Snifu, right? It wasn't supposed to be on pre-order until yesterday. And then they just let the pre-orders go wild and our Sony didn't even announce it. It was announced by Jeff Kealy and then Sony reconfirmed it and gave credit to Jeff Kealy. Clearly it was a planned Jeff Kealy announcement, but whatever. It still didn't feel right as a consumer base. I made a whole video on that actually you can watch up here. But beyond that, and the other lies that Sony has now been busted for, Xbox is apparently going to try to combat scalping. We now know what day it's coming, September 22nd. And we now know the times, which are over here, but whatever. We know for my case, it's 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time here, right here in the United States is when they go up. And according to Jeff Kealy, he has heard on Good Authority that Xbox is threatening retailers if they try to offer pre-orders early, threatening them. Now what is the threat? It's a veiled threat that could actually hurt consumers, but Microsoft's heart is in the right place. So they are telling these retailers that if you break the date, if you decide to take pre-orders early, they will reduce the amount of stock you get and probably reallocate it to either other retailers or obviously have it for in-store purchases. That is the current threat. Now it's interesting because obviously if legit consumers get pre-orders in at one of these companies, if they go up early, well, you might get your pre-order canceled. But it's a way to combat scalpers because scalpers have bots that automatically go and pre-order this stuff for them. They don't need to have a time or a day. It's a misnomer that scalpers actually have an advantage if they know the time of the day. Scalpers have an advantage at all times because their bots are constantly going on these websites all the time every second to get these products from the moment that they're announced. If you think the bots aren't already running for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, then you are kidding yourselves. But by consumers knowing it gives us the same opportunity to get it at the same time, assuming that retailers can hold out. All right, that's cool. We'll see what happens there. But we have another story. It's about Super Mario 3D All-Stars. Super Mario 3D All-Stars is out today. It's exciting. A lot of you guys are playing it right now or waiting for your copies to come. In fact, some of you might be waiting until October 2nd. Yes, folks. Some pre-orders are not actually coming on time and waiting for the second shipment. It looks like certain retailers took too many pre-orders for Super Mario 3D All-Stars and they're delaying people's copies until the second shipment comes, which looks like it's going to be at the end of this month. It's extremely disappointing for those that thought they had a day one pre-order locked in. And yeah, there's always the normal sniffoos where like some people get in the pre-orders tomorrow, some are getting them on Monday. That's just a shipping thing. They shipped the pre-order late. They showed a ship that yesterday or a couple days ago. Some people got the pre-orders early yesterday, but what I feel bad for are the people that have to wait weeks and weeks to get that pre-order copy. Some of you guys did listen to me in some of my other videos where I talked about going in person, especially at Walmart, where you could have got it for $50. So some of you guys are actually able to nab a physical copy in person today. But from what I am told, most retailers in person are now sold out of it as well. So if you had that pre-order and you had to wait until October 2nd, either buy it digitally or wait, you don't really have much of a choice. Kind of sucks. All right, speaking of those PlayStation 5 pre-orders that we were talking about before, Amazon sent out an email to every person who pre-ordered a PlayStation 5 on Amazon, basically saying, yep, you might not get one at launch. We'll get one to you as soon as we can. This is the same company that was taking pre-orders going into 2021. Yes, if you see a retailer taking pre-orders for launch and then taking pre-orders heading into second, third, fourth shipments, you're not going to be seeing this PlayStation 5 for a long time. And the thing is, they're just doing a general warning to everyone who pre-ordered on Amazon because they know they are not going to have enough stock for the amount of pre-orders they allowed to happen. And I think one thing that could help with this, one thing retailers need to learn, and hopefully they learn this with the Xbox Series X and S, is they should get finalized numbers from the company providing the product to you before you take pre-orders. I realize Sony might not offer that even for the time that they were going to allow pre-orders, but I'm just saying, Sony should give them a finite number and that's the amount of pre-orders you take. That's not what happened. Sony's kind of at fault, retailers are at fault, and legit consumers and scalpers, to be fair, are going to get the shaft and it's going to suck just like it's happening with 3D All-Stars. I'm sorry, I wish there was good news here. In fact, continuing the negative news, because it seems to be all negative news here, I'm so sorry, I can't help it, that's just what is happening on Prime News, it's all negative. Sony is pretending the Wii doesn't exist. Now, they're doing it because they're trying to argue why people should not buy an Xbox Series S without saying it, but they're trying to argue that Microsoft's strategy with that $300 lower spec system is a bad idea. Here's what Sony's Jim Ryan said about it. One thing that can be said is that if you look at the history of the game's business, creating a special low priced reduced spec console is something that has not had great results in the past. We've considered that option and seen other executives who have attempted this and discovered how problematic it is. So what they're saying is, low spec systems like the Wii, 100 million seller, can't be successful, and having a more powerful and a less powerful platform can't succeed either, like the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S, or the 3DS and the 2DS, or like the DS, DSi? My point here is that Nintendo has actually been like the masters of releasing lower spec systems of the original and then higher spec systems. Honestly, I don't get this argument. They're trying to argue that Sony will never release a lower spec system, and if Sony stands, they just want one platform, they want it to all be the same specs. That's fine. There is nothing wrong with that strategy. It has worked for them, except for the fact that they didn't release a PlayStation 4 Pro. That didn't sell that well. So are we not going to get a PlayStation 5 Pro? Is that what they're saying? Because remember, the PlayStation 4 Pro sales are not that high. But you know, it is what it is. I don't like this sentiment that low spec systems can't work. You could argue the Switch was a low spec system at launch. 60 plus million units later. I don't always understand the arguments that Sony makes here. They've been very high on themselves, heading into this generation. And they feel like they should be, because every generation but one, they have sold over 100 million units. They had multiple games this past year. I'm one of the best gens for software for them with 10 plus millions. So I'm hitting 20 plus millions, starting to do Nintendo-like software sales. And that's really great news for Sony and great news for Sony fans who are really into some of these games. That's why we're getting the Miles Morales. That's why we're getting another Horizon game. It's why we're getting Demon's Souls remastered. Final Fantasy XVI exclusive. There's a lot of things to be hyped about. But Sony, man, they just literally do not give a crap about the consumer. $70 games didn't tell anybody. They don't give a crap about the competition. You know what? We see what the competition is doing. It's going to fail. We don't care. To see them so dismissive of everyone around them, but their own pocketbooks, I guess it kind of fits with the mentality they created. I'm going to be honest. I know a lot of Sony fans out there that are very high and mighty, still calling the Switch a kitty console, still calling Xbox people dude bros, and just making fun of everyone because they're not as good as the superior PlayStation race. If I got to be honest, Sony's trying to act like Apple. There's a reason a lot of people don't like Apple. Don't be Apple. All right. Anyways, great products. Apple's got great products too. Just get rid of the Apple attitude. All right. It is what it is. Thank you guys for tuning in to Prime News. That's it. It's been kind of a weird day today. Be sure to tune in to our podcast tonight. Our podcast is every Friday at 8 p.m. Central Standard Time. Got a special guest on. Otherwise, I'll just catch you guys later.