Fans of Xenoblade games recall how the title Xenoblade Chronicles took an age and a lifetime to make its way to the Wii in North America… and when it did arrive, Nintendo published it as a limited release in their own store and in GameStop. It wasn’t long before stories abounded about the stock selling out, making the game hard to find shortly after launch.
Because of the game’s rare status, some wishful players have been paying large sums for used copies on sites like eBay, but there are now rumors that GameStop wanted in on this re-selling action. They’ve been accused of printing new copies of the game, slapping a $90 price point on them, and labeling them as “used.”
According to the story on Kotaku, that site has contacted a source that claims “the retailer printed a few thousand copies of the game with no shrink wrap” in order to restock the game’s inventory.
Other consumers have also been mentioning that they’ve noticed a recent surge in the game’s appearance on the second-hand game shelves at GameStop, which is an enormous contrast to the previous “almost impossible to find” status.
There have also been some posts on NeoGaf that point to this possibly being true—including the different cases being used on these copies, and the fact that these “used” games have unused Club Nintendo codes.
GameStop hasn’t commented on these accusations thus far, beyond saying that they’re looking into it. Why does this matter? Because selling new games at “used” high prices (taking advantage of the rarity of the game) would be nothing but a money grab that cheats the consumer and the developer.
