Amazon is attempting to curb the sale of used Nintendo games on its platform, according to a mass-email that has been going out to sellers. Starting today, those who sell on Amazon can no longer list used Nintendo titles, or at the very least, first-party ones. No explicit reason was given for this change, though sellers speculate that this is due to an overabundance of bootleg products. Those who list an item for sale that has Nintendo marked as the producer of said item, have been reporting that their listings have been removed for violating Amazon's new rule. In order for sellers to sell any first-party used condition Nintendo controllers, games, or accessories, they need to file for approval on an item-by-item process. Amazon can then deny, or approve said game sale. At this time, it only affects Nintendo games, and Amazon has not clarified as to whether this will impact other first-party products, sold by Xbox or PlayStation.

UPDATE:

Following the initial report of Amazon seller restrictions on used Nintendo products, Amazon has responded to the claims in a very brief official statement. Amazon claims that the email that was distributed to sellers was sent in error, and any removed listings have now been reinstated. Further details are vague, but it appears that sellers will NOT be impacted when selling used first-party Nintendo hardware or games.

Yesterday’s email [to third-party Amazon sellers] was sent in error, and all impacted listings were reinstated within hours.

Source

 

[sarkwalvein]

I think people should be able to sell stuff like reproduction SNES carts on Amazon.

Wouldn't that be straight out piracy?

 

[godreborn]

@Xzi , I had no idea either, but now that cart makes sense for me. I even called Nintendo about it, because I was trying to redeem coins. they gave me the coins anyway. though, it had already been past the 1 year mark, but I guess incorrect region supersedes the coin deadline. it actually said that the account wasn't the right region to redeem the coins. I'm going to start selling my 17-20 retail games soon, and I hope that that game doesn't cause me problems when going to resell it. iirc, the poi I got was shrink wrapped too like it was new.

 

[Xzi]

Wouldn't that be straight out piracy?

It's a grey area, unclear whether sellers are profiting from the ROM itself or from the hardware which houses it. Nintendo doesn't seem to go after any of the people selling reproductions on eBay, though, and there are a number of businesses/individuals who specialize in that.

 

[vice350z]

Apparently it was a mistake. I'm new so i can't posts links but The Verge has a story on it. An email sent "by mistake"

 

[OrGoN3]

Here ya go! https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...-sales-of-nintendo-products-without-approval/

 

[FAST6191]

It's a grey area, unclear whether sellers are profiting from the ROM itself or from the hardware which houses it. Nintendo doesn't seem to go after any of the people selling reproductions on eBay, though, and there are a number of businesses/individuals who specialize in that.

I don't see it.

The closest you would get to things like that are those "sale of weed is illegal in this state, but this club you can join for free has $8 cans of fizzy pop" but those are not really analogous to anything here.

This however... out and out paid for piracy. You tend not to be able to erase the carts or do much of anything with them save for play the game so there is not even the tissue thin (in this case) like additional debugging, general homebrew or "substantial non infringing uses" that emulators, flash carts and mod chips can often go with.

 

[osaka35]

Weird, @Chary , they changed course. 24 hours after, they just went "oops, our bad" and reinstated all the listings. thanks for the heads up OrGoN3.


what tomfoolery is this, amazon?

 

[godreborn]

I'm definitely happy, 'cause I've gotta sell my games at some point. it would be horrible to have wasted that much money on retail games when I have their digital counterparts.

 

[Xzi]

This however... out and out paid for piracy. You tend not to be able to erase the carts or do much of anything with them save for play the game so there is not even the tissue thin (in this case) like additional debugging, general homebrew or "substantial non infringing uses" that emulators, flash carts and mod chips can often go with.

I figure it doesn't really matter to Nintendo because they see the same $0 whether people buy original carts used, play ROMs on an emulator, or buy reproduction carts. It'd be a very different scenario if they were still manufacturing old games in a physical format themselves, but again, it's often the case that original carts can be hard/impossible to find. Especially at a reasonable price.

 

[FAST6191]

I figure it doesn't really matter to Nintendo because they see the same $0 whether people buy original carts used, play ROMs on an emulator, or buy reproduction carts. It'd be a very different scenario if they were still manufacturing old games in a physical format themselves, but again, it's often the case that some original carts can be hard/impossible to find. Especially at a reasonable price.

Conflating second hand reselling with piracy is bad form. Don't encourage people to more readily make the comparison. Not to mention they themselves have suggested people go on the second hand market at times.

Similarly they are often still selling those titles in essentially the same form on virtual consoles and emulator packs, not that copyright cares much.

 

[Xzi]

Conflating second hand reselling with piracy is bad form. Don't encourage people to more readily make the comparison. Not to mention they themselves have suggested people go on the second hand market at times.

I'm not conflating them myself, just saying that it's all the same from Nintendo's perspective. It certainly doesn't HAVE to be that way, they could make massive profits from limited re-releases of physical games every 15-20 years, but I digress.

Similarly they are often still selling those titles in essentially the same form on virtual consoles and emulator packs, not that copyright cares much.

Sure, and there's always stuff like SNES Classic, but it's just not the same as having original hardware/physical cartridges. All but one or two of my carts are originals, but expecting me to spend upward of $100 on certain individual SNES games is rather unreasonable.

 

[Sheimi]

Here ya go! https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...-sales-of-nintendo-products-without-approval/

Yeah, still gonna go on Ebay for used games.

 

[FAST6191]

I'm not conflating them myself, just saying that it's all the same from Nintendo's perspective. It certainly doesn't HAVE to be that way, they could make massive profits from re-releases of physical games every 15-20 years, but I digress.


Sure, and there's always stuff like SNES Classic, but it's just not the same as having original hardware/physical cartridges. All but one or two of my carts are originals

I don't know how hard spinning up such things would be, and I don't know if we have seen any other devs that still own their copyrights do this sort of thing (and we have seen some release emulator hardware of sorts) or if they have then it seems to have failed to set the world on fire. Similarly I am sure Nintendo would argue that scarcity is a selling factor for their new offerings and direct competition to it. You stand in front of a judge and say "it does not feel the same" and you would be laughed at.

 

[DarthDub]

I wonder why Amazon goofed like that?

 

[Xzi]

Similarly I am sure Nintendo would argue that scarcity is a selling factor for their new offerings and direct competition to it. You stand in front of a judge and say "it does not feel the same" and you would be laughed at.

That's the thing: Nintendo isn't arguing this case, and nobody is front of a judge. If anything, they'd go after the people selling reproduction cartridges, not the people buying them, and they haven't done that. It's not as if this is even remotely a new practice, either. I remember seeing reproductions on eBay as far back as 10 or 15 years ago.

For whatever reason, it just doesn't draw Ninty's ire like digital ROM distribution does. If I had to guess, it's because they know the people buying repros have already bought the hardware, so it builds/reinforces brand loyalty all the same. Just speculation though.

 

[ChaosEternal]

That's the thing: Nintendo isn't arguing this case, and nobody is front of a judge. If anything, they'd go after the people selling reproduction cartridges, not the people buying them, and they haven't done that. It's not as if this even remotely a new practice, either. I remember seeing reproductions on eBay as far back as 10 or 15 years ago.

For whatever reason, it just doesn't draw Ninty's ire like digital ROM distribution does. If I had to guess, it's because they know the people buying repros have already bought the hardware, so it builds/reinforces brand loyalty all the same. Just speculation though.

It could also be a matter of scale. I suspect that the number of people downloading ROMs is several orders of magnitude higher than the number of people buying high-quality reproduction cartridges.

 

[Plstic]

How do you send out an email like that and claim its a mistake?

 

[Deleted User]

“accidentally” sends out an email prohibiting the sale of Nintendo games. Coincidentally Nintendo listings were “mistakenly” removed.

 

[Foxi4]

It could also be a matter of scale. I suspect that the number of people downloading ROMs is several orders of magnitude higher than the number of people buying high-quality reproduction cartridges.

It's entirely a matter of scale, legally there's no grey area - it's resale of illegally produced pirate copies of software, in every sense of the word. Selling a reproduction cartridge is no different than selling a bootleg CD - they're both illegal. Unless the cartridge is sold blank and the user flashes the information onto it themselves in their own time, it's most certainly making profit off of illegal software. Thing is, Nintendo has bigger fish to fry as far as piracy is concerned - reproductions pale in comparison to flashcarts or other assorted mods.

 

[bobmcjr]

Even if this was actually a mistake, the fact that it was so plausible says a lot about the current state of Nintendo's attitude towards anything that vaguely resembles real competition.