Amazon angers Wii waiters

by Kevin Kelly { Nov 20th 2006 at 6:25PM }

Amazon.com pulled some shenanigans with the Wii on Sunday, angering a lot of gamers who had camped out on Amazon's Wii order page from Saturday night until Sunday afternoon, hitting refresh every couple of seconds. Amazon had previously touted (via the order page) that the Wii would be available for purchase on the site, sometime on Sunday, and that news spread like wildfire, especially amongst those who wanted to wait in the comfort of their own home, not on a curb somewhere.

However, by failing to provide a time they left a lot of buyers in the lurch, strike one. If you had previously registered on the page, you were told that you would receive an email as soon as they had more information about when the Wii would go on sale. Did anyone ever get that email? We sure didn't. Strike two. They eventually put up a notice that states, "We are currently out of stock: We sold out of our initial supply of the Wii on Sunday morning, November 19, in less than one minute." Yer out.

First came the debacle over "accidental" pre-orders in October, and now this. While folks were waiting on Sunday, the "user reviews" section became a forum of sorts, with people swapping alternatives for scoring a Wii, like brick and mortar stores and other websites. It grew to over 700 comments before Amazon finally shut it down and scaled it back to just reviews about the system.

Anyone actually able to score one during the one minute sale? We hope that with lightning fast gamer reflexes, you'd have the drop on regular Amazon shoppers.

Tags: Amazon, console, launch, Nintendo, order, preorder, sale, Wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jason @ Nov 20th 2006 6:31PM

My girlfriend got one. The page was up for literally 1 minute at around 11 am est. It shipped today supposedly.

Peter @ Nov 20th 2006 6:34PM

I got screwed over. I refreshed that page every ten seconds from 6:00 pm Saturday EST to noon on Sunday and never knew it went up for sale. Works cannot describe how pissed off I am.

AceMilo @ Nov 20th 2006 6:34PM

They did this with the first xbox also, which is why I no longer use amazon, ever. I ended up ordering the xbox from ebgames and now use them for my preordering needs, amazon can rot and die.

Peter @ Nov 20th 2006 6:36PM

words*

mjb @ Nov 20th 2006 6:37PM

I got an email from Amazon on 11/16 saying that they would be selling wiis on Sunday morning PST.

Around 8:00 am pacific time on Sunday, after hitting refresh on my browser for like half an hour, they went on sale.

Stuck one in my cart, tried to check out and was informed that they were out of stock but the system kept it in my basket. I kept refreshing this screen and trying to check out and FINALLY it let me complete the order.

Perhaps i am the only one, but I was able to buy a wii on Sunday and they just sent me the tracking # a few hours ago.

Garfinkel @ Nov 20th 2006 6:44PM

I was able to snag one within that one minute. However, mine states that it will not ship until January 18th. I don't understand. This sounds more like a pre-order than an order!

Killerfox @ Nov 20th 2006 6:44PM

I Camped the site till 12:20 PST, then gave up and went to bed, the next day in the morning I kept checking since 7:00 PST until 8:00, when they finally went on sale. Thanks for the 1-click option, or else I might have not gotten one.

FSK405K @ Nov 20th 2006 6:45PM

Screw you, Amazon! I checked you twice a day since August and have never recieved a Wii email from you depsite being a Amazone Prime member and being on the Wii email list. Instead, I rushed over to my local Costco a couple hours before it opened and got one there.

On the plus, though, you did get me my Zelda and Monkey Ball early, as both arrived last week.

Derka @ Nov 20th 2006 7:30PM

Was able to snag one from ToysRUs.

Jeff @ Nov 20th 2006 7:08PM

I can confirm that I got one from Amazon on Sunday, just as they had described. I did not however, sign up for an email notice.

JAC @ Nov 20th 2006 7:22PM

Those frieakin bastards, I was one of those gamers who spent the entire evening checking up on the page to see when it would be up for sale, it ruined my poker night cuz I had to run back and forth between the poker table and the PC, Amazon actually costed me some $$$.

Are there any other alternatives for ordering it online (besides ebay).

anna @ Nov 21st 2006 3:19AM

Geeeeek's. Who wants to waste their life on a gaming system? There's better stuff to spend your money on.

Nate @ Nov 20th 2006 7:30PM

I was on from a little before midnight est until right after selling out at 11:08 ish est when they sold out. I was refreshing the whole time, especially when they went on sale and like a lot of other people doing the same never even saw it as an option to buy. Needless to say I was incredibly incredibly angry/frustrated. I only managed to snag one from a very, very kind person on the message boards who I saw accidentally ordered two (totally by luck). The worst thing about the whole amazon debacle is that by camping out online I missed any opportunity to buy any in my area (I know many other people who did the same and were not as lucky as me). I have pretty big reservations now about using amazon again. Terrible.

Glen Murphy @ Nov 20th 2006 11:37PM

I got one - I had to spend a long hard night sleeping to do it, however.

Details here: http://glenmurphy.com/blog/2006/11/successful-camping-out-for-wii.html

Wonderwes @ Nov 20th 2006 8:18PM

I got one of the few 10/15 Wii preorders off Amazon. It arrived today (11/20) by DHL. It is now online. I hooked it up, setup was quick (RCA cables!?!? Cant even spring on svideo?). Played Wii sports for 30 min. Then have to go to work, sigh. The controller did seem wobbly with the pointer but I bet that can easily be corrected.

Got a 2nd Wii preorder off Amazon (bundle). I ordered it Sat morning (11/18) around 4am. Got an email alert not from amazon but from a Wii tracker site. Its the bundle with Madden, Monkeyball, and WSOP with a memory card. That was sold off amazon through target.direct but I doubt I will see it till at least December. They were sold out by the time I woke up.

Can't wait to bust out playing Tony Hawk, Excite Truck and of course Zelda. Systems seems great so far. Obviously analog tvs work fine, but it seems just a little less cool.

F'ed BY Amazon @ Nov 20th 2006 7:51PM

I ended up taking one up the arse from Amazon, but in an even more aggravating way. I was one of the people who "pre-ordered" the damn thing back on September 15, when I happened upon them testing the order system. They said they'd honor the orders that went through. Great... no need to pre-order one anywhere else right?

Well, they did not ship it out to arrive today (Monday). In fact, only this morning (6AM) they sent me an email stating they could only do a partial ship because the Wii is ready but Zelda is not ready to ship. What a screw-up.

Now, I'm going to have to ask my neighbor to come over and pick it up this week so it's not sitting out on my porch for five days.

Never again, Amazon...

F. Chair @ Nov 20th 2006 8:10PM

After realizing from many years of online shopping that waiting for an e-mail confirmation of when an item will go on sale when I've already heard that hundreds of people will be looking for every 1 unit the store has is a silly proposition, I refreshed the page like everyone else. So far, I'm in for one and it's shipping out later today.

Honestly, I could have sworn several blogs reported just several days ago that Amazon's stock of Wiis could only satisfy 1/100 people who signed up for e-mail notification. By the time confirmation of the sale goes out it's usually, a good portion of the time, already out of stock.

So I don't fault Amazon for this. And the Reviews section was getting ridiculous even by 12:15 AM EST. By then there were already around 40 comments and only one was even remotely about the system itself. It then devolved into nothing more than a discussion board, which was already available and thriving on the product page (well, at least depending upon your refresh). Couple that with everyone complaining that it wasn't on at midnight EST, midnight PST, and so forth when it was never guaranteed to go on sale the second Nov. 19 hit and it starts getting ludicrous.

Honestly, I think this was all blown out of proportion. If you don't get it at launch (and I doubt I may since I have a feeling my order may be pushed to a backorder if it takes any longer to process) then you just wait a little longer. Amazon simply dealt with the stock they had on hand and selling the Wii at 8 AM PST/11 AM EST was a reasonable way so that everyone has a chance at the product, not just those of us on the east coast or those of you on the west coast. Could it have been better? No doubt, but considering the server never crashed, never was overloaded, didn't accept umpteen orders only to tell everyone that it was a mistake (Hi, Radio Shack! Hola, Micro Center!), and didn't throw out a ludicrous bundle at the last second, it was fairly respectable.

Here's hoping the next launch is just a bit cleaner than this one.

Digriz @ Nov 20th 2006 8:16PM

I refreshed every 5 seconds and even saw the order button.

They never showed on the East Coast... The West coast no problem. My theory is they started their process on the west coast and before it could get to their caching servers... They sold out.

Got controllers and some other stuff, though.

Pj @ Nov 20th 2006 8:32PM

i got the email
but i had already got the preorder at circuit city

woot!

josh @ Nov 20th 2006 8:31PM

My friend Erica got one.

Justin Rossetti @ Nov 20th 2006 8:33PM

My amazon Wii will be at my front door in the morning!
(after checking I was the #3 person to pre-order @ amazon.com back in September)

Order Date: September 15, 2006
Order #: 002-5706973-950xxxx
Recipient: (me)
View order
Items shipped on November 17, 2006:
Delivery estimate: September 26, 2006 - November 21, 2006
1 package via UPSTrack your package

* 1 of: Nintendo Wii
Sold by: Amazon Export Sales, Inc.

Ryan @ Nov 20th 2006 8:38PM

I camped out from 3am est (midnight there) to 4am and said screw this. I woke up at 10am and thought I'd try again. I kept hitting refresh for an hour, then at 11am they finally saw it available and shouted "Wiii!" prompting my wife to enter the room lol. I added it to my cart quick as lightning and then the page took forever to load. When it friggen finally loaded, I got a message saying "We're sorry buy Sid Meier's Civilization IV Warlords is no longer in stock" I should have taken a screen shot, but I was in too much of a frenzy trying to hit back and add another Wii to my cart. Needless to say, they were gone. I'm NOT joking and if my wife didn't see the same thing, I probably wouldn't even believe this story.

erica @ Nov 20th 2006 8:43PM

i am the person referred to in the first and most recent comments (provided it's still recent). i was going to camp out but i've been sick so i decided to try a bunch of sites at midnight. i failed with them (compusa, bestbuy, circuit city) and put all bets on amazon. since the email i received on 11/16 said that they would go on sale 11/19 PST i assumed that they would naturally go on sale at 3 am est (my time zone). so i set my alarm and woke up at 3 am and refreshed for several minutes and they did not go on sale. i did the same thing again at 5 and 8 and basically gave up after that and went back to sleep.

i came to around 10 and decided that i was pissed. so i got my phone and called amazon and spoke to a human. of course the representative didn't know anything, but i pressed that he speak to management and find out IF they even went on sale at all, and if any others would be available. after a few minutes on hold, he came back and told me the initial batch sold out instantly BUT they would be releasing another batch that morning (EST). i decided that the lucky number was probably 8 am PST/11 am EST. at about 11:06 am EST they went on sale and i managed to get one into my cart, or so i thought. instead it gave me an error message saying they were out of stock, and that the wii would stay in my cart to be added/purchased later. so i spent another 5-10 minutes clicking "move to cart" and eventually it moved. i was able to check out and it shipped today. this entire situation took place while horizontal in my own bed. i can't complain. i can say if i hadn't called amazon i probably wouldn't have a wii.

Zerot @ Nov 20th 2006 10:29PM

I got one. Midwest.

Refreshed every 10 seconds from 2:30 EST until 11:00 EST. Immediately grabbed it and was good to go.

It's a lot better to camp out for stuff when you have Gears of War to play while you wait.

ummmOK @ Nov 20th 2006 10:48PM

Out of curiosity, do you have two girlfriends? The fact you specified her name is about the creepiest thing I have ever read. I could go on for hours about how weird it is but my mom, jennifer, is calling.

NeoWolf @ Nov 20th 2006 11:06PM

One of the reasons me and two friends waited at a Walmart Saturday night is because both of them got screwed over by Amazon! All three of us walked home winners though. #1, #2, and #3!

mateo @ Nov 21st 2006 12:34AM

I "got" one on Amazon. Sat at my computer from 11:30pm-12:15am Saturday night until I realized it wasn't to be. Set my alarm to wake me up at 7:30am Sunday morning and checked the Wii page every 15 minutes thereafter. At approximately 8:03am the button appeared to overnight it (I'm a Prime member) and I ordered my Wii via 1-click.

Alas, I can't get a straight answer as to when I should expect the Wii to be delivered. The original order page said it would be delivered Tuesday Nov 21st... then my confirmation email said Nov 21-Jan 19! 2007!!! Emails to Amazon gave me no answers and calls to customer service confused the matter. Out of the three different people I spoke with, two said that I should get my Wii tomorrow but one of them said it wasn't clear when Amazon would get sufficient stock. My order page still says it's about to be shipped or may not ship until January... depends on which account page I'm looking at.

I never got the email about preordering, nor did I get one saying that the Wii was up for sale. Kept reading about supposed emails from Amazon telling customers to wait until 3AM EST as that is when the Wii was supposed to go on sale.

I propose an unheralded strike four for Amazon's uninformed customer service reps.

S. Wolff @ Nov 20th 2006 11:44PM

I arrived home empty-handed at 8:15am CST after waiting in line at Target for several hours only to miss the cut of 90 Wii units. Once home I checked amazon and found they hadn't even gone on sale yet.

After reading the discussion board/product reviews and learning that people were spending hours refreshing the page every few seconds, I came to the realization that they most likely wouldn't go on sale at some random time like 8:41am. So from 8:29-8:31, 8:59-9:01 and 9:29-9:31 I checked, only to be disappointed each time. So at 9:30 I fed my son, ate a bowl of cereal, and sauntered back to the computer at 10:00. I refreshed and lo and behold they were available. I hit the 1-click buy button and just today received a confirmation tracking number of when I'll receive my Wii.

After learning that they sold out in less than a minute, I must say that was pure dumb luck on my part :)

chenry @ Nov 21st 2006 12:23AM

Amazon.ca did a much better job, having a 1-day preorder in late September. The order is currently preparing to ship and I should have it by weds or thursday. Mind you, they didn't tell a soul when the preorder would be. It just kinda happened. I lucked out when I seearched "Wii" on a whim.

Shockz @ Nov 21st 2006 2:07AM

I waited all night. I was up for approx. 21 hours. I guessed 8 AM PST as well. I was constantly hitting refresh on the page.

I never even saw the order button. Under a minute? Heh, more like about five seconds. Literally.

F*ck you, Amazon. I should have been camping out at Target.

Shockz @ Nov 21st 2006 2:12AM

Oh, also:

Any idea how I should proceed to get a Wii (without succumbing to the insane demands of eBay) within the wiik? I want mine by Thanksgiving, though I know that may not be possible.

mateo @ Nov 21st 2006 3:27AM

The third Amazon customer service rep I spoke with told me that they should be getting more stock in this week and that they hope to fulfill the orders received so far. My account still says that it won't ship until after December 25th though... hope that's just a worst-case scenario.

Having briefly worked in a call center a few years ago, I know all too well the bullshit that's fed to customers to satiate them and end the call. I don't think Amazon even knows when they'll get more in stock. Until then, we're screwed.

Markusdragon @ Nov 21st 2006 3:38AM

On a similar note, Amazon UK start their Wii preorders in... about 34 minutes.

Timberwolf @ Nov 21st 2006 5:49AM

I just manaed to preorder one on Amazon UK. It seems December the 8th is going to be a good day after all.

Alondo @ Nov 21st 2006 9:09AM

"I refreshed that page every ten seconds from 6:00 pm Saturday EST to noon on Sunday."

This really sucks for you guys that camped on the site, refreshing for hours on end. I can't even begin to understand how pissed you'd have to be to refresh for 18 hours straight only to see "Wii are sold out".

Does any know if they will issue a public response on this or the failed promise of having Playstation 3's?