Pre-Ordered a Copy of Metroid Prime Remastered? Expect Delivery in 5 Weeks

The physical edition of Metroid Prime Remastered launched for the Switch on Feb.22, but many who pre-ordered the game have been told they won’t receive their copy until April.

Pre-ordering a game typically means you get it on launch day or the day after. However, as IGN reports(Opens in a new window), pre-orders placed through Amazon(Opens in a new window) are not shipping immediately. Some customers are being told the game won’t arrive until Mar. 27 or Apr. 3.

At other retailers, including Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart the game is sold out. You’d think the Nintendo Store would be well-prepared, but it also has no physical copies left to sell(Opens in a new window) and the product listing states “This item is no longer available.” Of course, the digital version is readily available.

(Credit: Nintendo)

IGN Deals carried out a Twitter poll(Opens in a new window) that revealed 79% of respondents hadn’t received their pre-ordered copy of the game yet. So it seems Nintendo has screwed up here and the initial run of physical copies isn’t anywhere near big enough to meet demand. Worse still is the fact it doesn’t look as though a physical copy of the game can be purchased anymore. So if you didn’t pre-order you’re out of luck and left facing scalper prices on auction sites or being very lucky (and quick) in a retail store.

It seems so counterintuitive that Nintendo would limit how many copies of a game it makes because that in turn limits the amount of money the company makes. A similar situation happened with the release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars, which Nintendo decided to only sell for a limited period of time in both physical and digital forms. It meant finding a copy was more difficult than it should have been and has inevitably kept prices high.