Literally a used Switch game in a big, ridiculous bag with a “New” sticker on it. Imagine going into a GameStop with a game in a bag like this and convincing them to give you credit for it as “New”.
Don’t buy online from GameStop. Actually, just don’t buy from GameStop.
I mean, GameStop’s entire business model is that they’re a chain of predatory pawnshops that prey on children so I’m not terribly surprised.
I went in to a GameStop to buy a new switch charger because my kids lost it on vacation. They told me you have to buy the right kind of charger, I was very confused because I thought Nintendo only sells one kind of charger for the switch. I told the guy I’m using it with a docking station and he pulled out some shitty GameStop branded charger and I said no thanks. The guy proceeded to tell me I would have to buy the charger directly from Nintendo…I went down the road to target and bought one off the shelf after like 5 minutes of looking. Fucking shameless GameStop…
Just to make sure I wasn’t going insane, I looked at Nintendo’s website, and sure enough they only sell one kind of charger for the Nintendo switch. There’s some weird smaller charger they sell for accessories like the pokeball thing for let’s go Pikachu but they very clearly spell that out when you purchase the charger.
Not related to your point at all, but: The switch uses USB-C. Pretty much any USB-C charger will work. For the dock you do want to make sure it can push enough power, but it’s a rather low requirement. I use the same charger for my SteamDeck dock and the Switch dock. It’s the great thing about USB-C. But of course gamestop would try to sell you their generic crap instead of an official one.
You don’t want to be using any random USB-C charger for your switch. The Nintendo switch doesn’t adhere to USB-C power delivery standards and using a different charger can cause problems. That’s why all of those third party docks were burning up switches when the switch first came out.
The docks were standard USB-C docks, but since the switch doesn’t follow proper USB-C standards because Nintendo, the docks were providing too much current and burning up switches. I will never use a third party charger for my switches, although if I did use one, the steam deck charger would be my first choice.
I’m sure the chance of anything happening is so low that it’s probably insignificant, but I’d rather not take the chance, down votes be damned.
Same thing happened to me recently with their stupid BOGO sale, I bought Xenoblade Chronicles DE and Skyward Sword “New” and they sent me both packages with no plastic wrapping whatsoever, the pre-owned stickers very obviously ripped off and lots of damage to the cases. I went to a brick and mortar to return it and they didn’t reimburse my shipping fees, I had to call customer support for them to give that back to me.
I tried to just buy them new in store and they told me they “don’t carry rare games like that anymore.” I said fuck it, and went to my local Walmart for Xenoblade and Target for Skyward Sword and it cost me less. What a fucking joke. GameStop is trash.
My most recent gripe is with Amiibo, Nintendo literally announced some new ones recently and yet none of their supposed retailers carry them, aside from Amazon who have ridiculous upcharges on them. Went to GameStop and the employees didn’t even know what the fuck I was talking about. So if you can’t buy them directly from Nintendo you’re shit outta luck cuz good luck finding anyone that sells them for retail price.
So if you can’t buy them directly from Nintendo you’re shit outta luck cuz good luck finding anyone that sells them for retail price.
This is par for the course for basically any physical Nintendo product. Ninty is categorically allergic to manufacturing enough supply to satisfy demand and the resellers figured this out about 10-15y ago. Any limited production run product is almost immediately bought out on Amazon and the other big retailers websites and relisted at a markup on Amazon/eBay. If resellers smell blood in the water around a manufacturing run of a popular game (ie: Nintendo is close to selling through the available physical cartridge supply) they’ll buy that up and resell it too. Nintendo would rather their products be unavailable for however long it takes them to decide to manufacture more (usually somewhere between two and six months) than have excess stock on hand.
GameStop is trash.
Yup. And none of this is a surprise or new revelation - they’ve been trash the whole fucking time. Some folks just got so into their ‘big short’ fanfic that they thought keeping this company alive would be fun and profitable.
hopefully they had fun. it’s gonna crater sooner or later thanks to their business practices, and thank goodness. Mom & Pop shops like Pink Gorilla are way better any day.
I tried to just buy them new in store and they told me they “don’t carry rare games like that anymore.”
Wait, was that bullshit, or was that game still a ridiculously limited release in America? Does NoA really hate this game that much?
In Europe physical XCDE doesn’t really look that rare.
I remember back when - at least over here in Germany - Gamestop were… cool. When they were just shop for consoles, games and some gaming geek stuff. And the whole used-sales was a small small side-business.
That was a long time ago, but damn was it awesome to have dedicated game shops.
This “New” game was in the same order. Looks like they fished it out of a dumpster.
Back in the day they would tell me the only game they have left in stock is the wall case copy. So you can take it but the case was opened and disc removed and put into a drawer behind the counter in a cd envelope. They would tell you it’s new and they can’t give a discount but assure you it’s new. I hated that, still took it but I really hated it. Give $5 off or something… the worst part is it probably happened to me like 3 times which I couldn’t believe.
I wonder if the copy in the pic is the same deal that I had.
I used to work for their brand in my country, and I would have to repackage and shrink wrap the game & booklets when we received new stock.
So yes, it is open but still new (assuming the store manager is honest).
I still didn’t like the idea of doing this to games, but there weren’t many jobs in my town and it sure beat working checkouts…
