Nintendo has apparently refused to offer Amazon France Nintendo Switch stock and future games.
Amazon France has stopped selling the Nintendo Switch officially. Now the console is only sold through third party sellers on the platform, that too at a premium, around €350 on average.
Although there is no confirmation regarding this and only a rumor for now, fans in France are speculating that its probably due to to the price discrepancy between Amazon France’s prices and other third party retailers.
Amazon France was selling the console for as low as €270 while other major retailers like Micromania and Fnan were selling the console for €330 and €300 respectively. The MSRP for the console in Europe is €330 after tax. This would obviously lead to Nintendo getting massive complaints from their buyers regarding this huge of a difference in prices. Nintendo looks to have taken this undercutting seriously, blacklisting Amazon France from selling their products.
When asked about the matter by IGN FR, Amazon and Nintendo refused any official comments by stating that they”can not communicate about it,” and have “no information” to give.
The issue doesn’t end with the Nintendo Switch console though as by the looks of things, Amazon France won’t be selling any future games either. Amazon is currently taking no pre-orders of upcoming games like Pokemon Let’s Go, Mario Party of Smash Bros. Ultimate. The same goes for upcoming hardware bundles.
Previously released games for the Switch seem to be affected too. The games seem to be imported, EU, English specific copies now coming with a “Jaquette en anglais, jouable en français” (“English cover, playable in french”) warning.
We just hope it’s only a temporary dispute between the giants. This is not the first time that Amazon had a problem with a major gaming company. Sony and Amazon were in arms for quite some time, leading to unavailability of games like God of War and Spider-Man on their platform, the issue seems to have been resolved recently.
On the other side of the coin, Nintendo has been accused of “ripping off” their EU customers before. The company was fined £94m with the committee stating:
The fine… reflects its size in the market concerned [it is the second largest maker of video games in the world], the fact that it was the driving force behind the illicit behaviour and also because it continued with the infringement even after it knew the investigation was going on,
What are your thoughts on the matter? Let us know in the comments below.
