I finally realized, you don't need to pre-order.

OK, mods, please don't lock this because I have a point and it's about games in general not just Brawl :). OK so me and my friend went to mall about 10 minutes before EB games opened(I had a pre-order) and we were looking around in wall-mart to see if they had any. He needed to get Brawl from somewhere anyways because he didn't have a pre-order. So we go to the electronics department and the lady says "are you looking for Smash Brothers Brawl" and we said yeah so she told us to go the customer service. When we got there they said they had the shipment there and they still had over 200 copies of Brawl! So I'm like what the heck I might as well just buy it here (I'll cancel my pre-order some other time). So we both went down the main section of the mall and we stop by EB games to see what was there. We are both holding our copies of Brawl and here is this big lineup of around 10 or so people watching us. We laughed. I'm never pre-ordering again, there is no need, EB games just wants your money!!

Preo-ordering games is a load of (s word). The only reason I can see myself pre-ordering a game would be if they had a super special deal that comes with the game if you pre-order (such as a free couple month suscribtion to a magazine etc..) but nothing else.

I felt bad for the idiots who pre ordered Brawl at Best Buy, Toys R Us and those other big name stores. They were sold out within an hour (maybe less). I strolled myself down my local independant gamestore and bought Brawl a day early.

Preordering puts a chain around your neck and virtually forces you to buy off whoever you pre ordered off of.

Not really, you can always cancel it, which is what I'm going to do.theweakbear

Oh ok, well there's that too I guess but it's still bull. I hate waiting in lines.

thank goodness for big box stores.

all the independant stores only had a few copies reserved for pre-orders, and weren't very helpful for when they would get more. Then i strolled over to Bestbuy and they had too many copies to know what to do with, and they give you a free random hat.

well i live on Guam so that mean:1. theres only one gamestop near by (no walmarts,bestbuys, toysrus, or targets)

2 supplies are limited

3 some release dates are a few days late

so pre ordering for me is a good idea. its not like it costs extra money anyway

preorderd and got a ten dollar gift card :Dbionicle_lover

ya that is the same reason why i preordered mine at circuit city. i only pre order games if they offer a deal with it.

well honestly it's good to receive a gift card but also bad in a way. Think about it. You can't use the gift card on your purchase only on another purchase which means you'll end up spending money in the future. And all of you guys are acting like you loose money when you pre-order. It's just a game you'll have a copy and you'll do just one trip. No need to waste gas driving around places. True however Brawl isn't a sellout game. When I was looking for Gears of War or even Halo i had a lot of trouble.

I pre-ordered Brawl and I'm glad I did. I walked in the store, said "I want to pick up a copy of Brawl" they asked if I had a pre-order, I said yea, and they said "good, because if you didn't you'd be out of luck. We only got 10 copies left, out of the 100 or so we got". Sure I could have went around to other stores, but why chance it? I thought "Heck, there'd be enough Wiis out there" and I had to wait 2 weeks after launch to get mine. I pre-order games I want, I don't mind to spend the extra money. And if there's a good deal going on then I'll just move my money over to another pre-order and get the game at that store. Arcanine_88

I pre-order my games too, cuz there's no independent game shops in my region, only the big name retailers (EBGames, BestBuy...).

But what you said about "spend the extra money," it's not really true. You prepay a portion of the sale price of the game, and once the game arrives, that pre-paid amount is deducted from the total.

Pre-ordering is bull crap? Boy you dont know what your talking about. Pre-ordering a game isnt a commiment, you arent paying extra nor are you giving away your money. If you decided to cancel you can come in and get your money back. And pre-ordering isnt worthless, for some titles and in some areas it is a necessity.

My store recieved 190 copies, and guess how many pre-orders we recieved? 190. At open we were sold out to the general customer. By 2p(remember malls open at 12) The entire mall(walmart, toysru, hmv, etc) was sold out. I had people all day long coming in and asking for it. Were they **** outta luck, you betcha. Why because they either didnt pre-order or didnt get out of bed soon enough to get itLove_Hina_Lover

That's the biggest bunch of bull I heard in a long time

All preordering does is make sure you pay the highest possible price for the game.

Games do NOT sell out. Ok sure those shady stores like EBGames and Gamestop sell out but that's mainly because they're run horribly and make profits by fleecing the customers but REAL stores? No they don't sell out.

Stores know that certain games will sell and if they don't sell you the game you're not going to wait till they get more you'll just find another store.

I'm glad your one mall sold out, the smart customers drove a half mile and picked it up from another retailer.

ya i preordered galaxy only for that coin otherwise i wouldnt have ,,

and brawl i bought online preorder but still the same ,,

preordering at gamestop or eb unless its a console is a waste of time,, as they always have enough copies of the game to begin with, not like every one wants one, the console is the problem because its not part of a genre ,, and are likely to be more limited in supplies its first couple of years,

depending on how the demand is ,

i didnt preorder gta iv cause i know walmart will always have it, they still have san andreas for pete sake,

and that came out in 2005 so you know gta iv will be there, if you dont get it on launch day so what you wait a couple of days if you dont find a copy ,

theres times youd preorder and still they didnt have enough-eg.wii psp ds, 360 people where empy handed even though they preordered ,

some times it pays off some times you still go empty handed , thus making it seem as if you didnt even put money down,

thank god i was first to preorder the wii lol very limited preorders made du e to what happend when 360 ds and psp first came out , people complained big time

In my daily routine, I am at least 30 minutes from any stores that would carry it. I apparently live in a blackhole. So if there is a game I know that I will want, I'll have it mailed to me and If I decide before I buy it, I'll place my order online well before the release. I haven't been playing as much and have a good amount of games that I haven't beaten yet so I opted for regular shipping. It's no sweat that I don't have it the day of release, but I know I'll want it and I'll burn up the amount I paid in shipping and handling fees in the gas and my time if I drive to get it.

So in some cases, pre-ordering isn't a waste of efforts. In fact in my case, mailing probably saves me money and ordering well before release means that I won't have to worry about back orders (as buying online does quite often to higher demand games).

[QUOTE="Love_Hina_Lover"]Pre-ordering is bull crap? Boy you dont know what your talking about. Pre-ordering a game isnt a commiment, you arent paying extra nor are you giving away your money. If you decided to cancel you can come in and get your money back. And pre-ordering isnt worthless, for some titles and in some areas it is a necessity.

My store recieved 190 copies, and guess how many pre-orders we recieved? 190. At open we were sold out to the general customer. By 2p(remember malls open at 12) The entire mall(walmart, toysru, hmv, etc) was sold out. I had people all day long coming in and asking for it. Were they **** outta luck, you betcha. Why because they either didnt pre-order or didnt get out of bed soon enough to get itJaysonguy

That's the biggest bunch of bull I heard in a long time

All preordering does is make sure you pay the highest possible price for the game.

Games do NOT sell out. Ok sure those shady stores like EBGames and Gamestop sell out but that's mainly because they're run horribly and make profits by fleecing the customers but REAL stores? No they don't sell out.

Stores know that certain games will sell and if they don't sell you the game you're not going to wait till they get more you'll just find another store.

I'm glad your one mall sold out, the smart customers drove a half mile and picked it up from another retailer.

99% of the time you're right, there is no way a game will sell out.

But anyone who tried to find World of Warcraft when it originally launched in November of 2004 that didn't have a pre-order or didn't snatch it up the first day had a real hard time getting a copy. I know, because my wife and I decided to try it out but there weren't any copies on the shelves anywhere. After checking over ten places, I finally got lucky and found a copy at Target that some one had hidden behind some other games and I scored another copy at gamestop because some one never picked up their pre-order and it was past the hold time on it. This was two weeks after the game was released. Yup, two weeks and the shelves were still empty of this game.

Pre-ordering is basically a safety net for people who want to make sure they secure a copy for when the game first comes out. There's no obligation to purchase the game with the company you pre-ordered with, so if you find the game cheaper some where else, just get it there and cancel your pre-order. I actually found out today that I had pre-ordered Galaxy with gamestop and had forgotten all about it. They gave me my 5 bucks back with no fuss at all.

I find irony in this topic, for had we pre-ordered the Wii instead of expecting it to be on store shelves on launch day Nintendo would have had more money to make more units and eliminate the massive price-gouging in the first place...

Also, pre-order games that are not from AAA companies, had I not pre-ordered No More Heroes my local store would not have gotten any copies at all. Instead they got 3, and sold them out so fast they got another 7 the next week. Believe it or not, smaller companies need pre-orders to ship out a healthy number of units. If they print too little, then they might never print another run and accidentally let a high-demand game slip away. But if nobody is demanding the game, they can't justify stockpiling an underperformer and go out of business anyway.

That's why pre-orders exist. They are feel-goods for consumers and companies alike. I wouldn't under-value the price of comfort.

My walmart had a midnight launch, I was there.

Went to walmart today with a friend to get Brawl and they had a load of copies.

when people pre-order is because they can't wait and want to be 100% sure they can get their game on the same day it comes out or want to be the first to have it. Rarely do games ever sell out because the publishers usually make plenty games if the game has alot of hype(Halo, GTA, Brawl, MGS, etc). In the 90's pre-ordering was necessary because games would run out but I can't remember the last somewhat hyped and super hyped game that sold out.

I pre-ordered Brawl and I'm glad I did. I walked in the store, said "I want to pick up a copy of Brawl" they asked if I had a pre-order, I said yea, and they said "good, because if you didn't you'd be out of luck. We only got 10 copies left, out of the 100 or so we got". Sure I could have went around to other stores, but why chance it? I thought "Heck, there'd be enough Wiis out there" and I had to wait 2 weeks after launch to get mine. I pre-order games I want, I don't mind to spend the extra money. And if there's a good deal going on then I'll just move my money over to another pre-order and get the game at that store. Arcanine_88

my friend and i waited in line for like 5 hours, he was able to preorder it an hour before its release lol

[QUOTE="Love_Hina_Lover"]Pre-ordering is bull crap? Boy you dont know what your talking about. Pre-ordering a game isnt a commiment, you arent paying extra nor are you giving away your money. If you decided to cancel you can come in and get your money back. And pre-ordering isnt worthless, for some titles and in some areas it is a necessity.

My store recieved 190 copies, and guess how many pre-orders we recieved? 190. At open we were sold out to the general customer. By 2p(remember malls open at 12) The entire mall(walmart, toysru, hmv, etc) was sold out. I had people all day long coming in and asking for it. Were they **** outta luck, you betcha. Why because they either didnt pre-order or didnt get out of bed soon enough to get itJaysonguy

That's the biggest bunch of bull I heard in a long time

All preordering does is make sure you pay the highest possible price for the game.

Games do NOT sell out. Ok sure those shady stores like EBGames and Gamestop sell out but that's mainly because they're run horribly and make profits by fleecing the customers but REAL stores? No they don't sell out.

Stores know that certain games will sell and if they don't sell you the game you're not going to wait till they get more you'll just find another store.

I'm glad your one mall sold out, the smart customers drove a half mile and picked it up from another retailer.

I'm gonna have to disagree. I've seen games sold out on more than one occasion.

Most of the time a preorder is not necessary. After all, the preorder is really to help the store gauge demand so they can determine how many units to order. Your guaranteed copy is a side effect of the preorders actual purpose.

Preordering Brawl is unnecessary because supplies are going to be huge. But look at games like No More Heroes. No retailers knew if this game was going to sell, and a retailer's worst nightmare is having more inventory than they can move. So, they played it safe and didn't order a large supply. I don't have a source handy, but I'm fairly sure that No More Heroes sold out in most areas.

i pre-order all the time. nothing wrong with it at all, it's actually quite usefull. some people just make a big deal out of everything. that's why they should rename this site whinybabyspot.

waiting in line with other nintnedo fans is all part of the fun and anticipation!!!

And they don't get 200 copies of EVERY game...Games still DO sell out...you just need to know which ones are going to get lots of copies in the stores, and THEN decide if you need to pre-order

Yep, you don't have to pre-order. But if they give away extra things with your free order maybe that'll give you a reason to. I haven't bought a game at those video game stores since Oblivion came out for the 360. And I never pre-ordered a game before. I have had someone pre-order me a game before though. So it just depends, if you get extra things, and it depends where you are, pre-ordering might be worth it or not.

It's hardly a rip-off to preorder. You pay the EXACT same amount of money. And this way you KNOW you have a copy. All you do is put 5 dollars down now, and pay the 45+tax later. You're not spending any extra money, so why not?Wiifanboy_4life

Actually is 49.99+ tax, which is in CA (dunno about you guys) 54.11, plus 5 that you don't need to put down is 59.11, almost $10 more than the original price not including tax. So, yeah, preordering is a giant waste of money, got Brawl just fine even though I was too lazy to go preorder the game.

[QUOTE="Love_Hina_Lover"]Pre-ordering is bull crap? Boy you dont know what your talking about. Pre-ordering a game isnt a commiment, you arent paying extra nor are you giving away your money. If you decided to cancel you can come in and get your money back. And pre-ordering isnt worthless, for some titles and in some areas it is a necessity.

My store recieved 190 copies, and guess how many pre-orders we recieved? 190. At open we were sold out to the general customer. By 2p(remember malls open at 12) The entire mall(walmart, toysru, hmv, etc) was sold out. I had people all day long coming in and asking for it. Were they **** outta luck, you betcha. Why because they either didnt pre-order or didnt get out of bed soon enough to get itJaysonguy

That's the biggest bunch of bull I heard in a long time

All preordering does is make sure you pay the highest possible price for the game.

Games do NOT sell out. Ok sure those shady stores like EBGames and Gamestop sell out but that's mainly because they're run horribly and make profits by fleecing the customers but REAL stores? No they don't sell out.

Stores know that certain games will sell and if they don't sell you the game you're not going to wait till they get more you'll just find another store.

I'm glad your one mall sold out, the smart customers drove a half mile and picked it up from another retailer.

how do you end up paying the highest price? i payed $54.37 for brawl. isnt that the normal asking price? (NY state tax included)

[QUOTE="Wiifanboy_4life"]It's hardly a rip-off to preorder. You pay the EXACT same amount of money. And this way you KNOW you have a copy. All you do is put 5 dollars down now, and pay the 45+tax later. You're not spending any extra money, so why not?bobsarcasm

Actually is 49.99+ tax, which is in CA (dunno about you guys) 54.11, plus 5 that you don't need to put down is 59.11, almost $10 more than the original price not including tax. So, yeah, preordering is a giant waste of money, got Brawl just fine even though I was too lazy to go preorder the game.