Because Nintendo hates money and common sense, the NES Classic and SNES Classic are still not consistently in stock anywhere in the United States. Sure, there are fire sales — and plenty of resellers on Amazon — but new stock coming into an online store is still big news.
ThinkGeek has confirmed that it has NES and SNES Classic stock sitting in its warehouse right now. But rather than a conventional online sale, which is liable to be riddled with bots, the company is trying a new system to get as many consoles into the hands of fans as possible.
ThinkGeek is running a lottery system instead of first-come-first-served. The company says that not only is it more fair, but it should help with weeding out the bots:
We know that many of you who were hoping to get a Nintendo NES or SNES Classic Edition for the holidays were disappointed by the lack of supply. We feel you. But there’s still some time left, and we’re trying to distribute them in the fairest way we know.
We received a shipment of NES and SNES Classics to our warehouse, and we’re holding a drawing to let you buy them without having to be at your local store the moment the truck shows up. Because ain’t nobody got time for that.
All you have to do is sign up here, and if you’re one of those randomly selected, we’ll email you with instructions on how to buy yours.
The SNES Classic and NES Classic are bound to be ideal gifts for the holidays, thanks to the retro value and the fact that they’re both cheap games consoles that come preloaded with a bunch of games.