What's the deal with the availability of GameCube adapters for Wii U?

[Kabutops]

What's the deal with the availability of GameCube adapters for Wii U? Are they no longer in production?

 

[ZeldaMaster]

What's the deal with the availability of GameCube adapters for Wii U? Are they no longer in production?

From what I've heard, that seems to be the case, unfortunately. That means that now I can never get one.

 

[_gold_]

Think of it as the release of the Wii. Nintendo simply didn't produce enough consoles to keep up with the demand, therefore, there was a shortage. Same goes for the GC adapter. I don't think they've stopped production, just they're in back order right now.

 

[Kabutops]

Think of it as the release of the Wii. Nintendo simply didn't produce enough consoles to keep up with the demand, therefore, there was a shortage. Same goes for the GC adapter. I don't think they've stopped production, just they're in back order right now.

I really really hope that this is the case.

 

[Born in 1839...]

Still need one, Nintendo ****ing make more

 

[Sodo]

I missed out on buying one when I had the chance, and I regret it every day. I may cave and buy one of the third party adapters with four ports if there's no light at the end of the tunnel soon...

 

[Shawn Michael Slaughter]

I talked to a Gamestop employee last week and he theorized that Nintendo made one batch in a factory, then repurposed said factory. So they don't have a facility to produce more until one gets freed up. Sounds plausible to me, but between this and the Amiibo Nintendo severely underestimates their fan-base. ESPECIALLY the Smash Community.

 

[Mega Rayquaza]

Nintendo not understanding how supply and demand works. Amiibo side of the fanbase feels your pain too.
I'm amazed I got one honestly. I preordered one just a few days before they became out of stock.

 

[Shawn Michael Slaughter]

Nintendo not understanding how supply and demand works. Amiibo side of the fanbase feels your pain too.
I'm amazed I got one honestly. I preordered one just a few days before they became out of stock.

I got a Rosalina on the way, but through a long chain. I live in the US, ordered through Canadian Amazon, and it's coming from a Japanese Store. And even then it cost more than I would've liked, but considering she's my favorite character in the last decade, I consider it worth it.

 

[K7Sniper]

A friend of mine manages a gamestop, and I helped him out over the holidays. He held onto one for me

 

[RorschachDM]

I'm pretty sure what happened here was that Nintendo, in their infinite wisdom, under produced the Gamecube adaptors (intentional or not, we don't know), and people scooped up what was available. They've come in and out of stock, so there's some flow/storage of them somewhere or they would have just stayed out of stock. The problem comes in now that people KNOW that there is shortages, when they come in stock, scalpers scoop up the majority of them, leaving little for the average player/consumer. Until Nintendo ramps up the production, they'll stay out of stock due to these scalpers.

 

[Iceweasel]

Nintendo produced very few for one of two reasons:

1) Incompetence. There's no reason one of the biggest gaming companies in the world wouldn't have people whose job is to check message boards to see how people react to their announcements.

2) PR. Nintendo, trying to get people talking about Smash U (aka the only version of Sm4sh anyone cares about), intentionally produced too few so that gaming news sites will talk about it, and keep Sm4sh on people's minds. I guess this was supposed to work under the idea of "Any exposure is good exposure", but it's really just making Nintendo look incompetent at best (see point #1) or disrespectful of their fans at worst, given how long the shortage has gone on.


If it's #2, Nintendo's losing a lot of sales doing this. It's stopped being news a month ago, and people have been saying that the 4-port Mayflash adapter works just as well as the official, so people are ordering that instead. Granted, Nintendo may be trying to manufacture enough that the scalpers won't buy all of them up immediately. Problem is, once they have that amount made, the casuals will have moved on and the competitive community will mostly have gotten the Mayflash. I have a few friends whose purchase of Smash 4 (and consequently, a Wii U) rested entirely upon whether they could get a GC adapter.

 

[_gold_]

@ Iceweasel I highly doubt it's #2. Nintendo isn't that type of company. But I do think they're ignorant sometimes when it comes to their community and their demands.

 

[Sean²]

Think of it as the release of the Wii. Nintendo simply didn't produce enough consoles to keep up with the demand, therefore, there was a shortage. Same goes for the GC adapter. I don't think they've stopped production, just they're in back order right now.

This is the most probable cause. Nintendo seems to mass ship a huge amount of a popular product to stores then not resupply them when it runs out.

 

[The Shadow Emperor]

There seems to be several on ebay right now going around $35. It's certainly better than the $100+ people were asking for when they were first released.

 

[edde]

#competitive_nintendo_marketing_team

Im foreign and we dont get nice ****, specially on the country with most inflation in the world right now, so adapters and new gc controllers are either hard to get or way too expensive (on my country's ebay-ish thing i found a bundle of 2 controllers and an adapter being sold on the equivalent of 7500$ of currency trade value)

so i have to stick to this ****, this one and only **** a friend brought me from outside... im actually pleased with it as it works great, but i have some theories that the regular stick is not working as a GC controller's should (cant test without adapter)... and the c-stick has a wide top, i never thought it would annoy me, but some times trying to do a quick B, the top of the c stick gets in the way and inputs an unnecessary command... the shape is lets say 95% right, and its of very good quality... also the L and R buttons are kinda small, but its not a big issue

 

[Talazala]

If you have any friends working in electronic retail, ask them to snag you one if a shipment comes in.

That's how I got mine, my friend at Best Buy said a shipment of 2 adapters came in about two weeks ago and he bought one immediately. So yeah, not all of them have been sold yet.

 

[Commander Fresh]

From my understanding, Nintendo had underestimated the demand for the adapter and did not continue the manufacturing after the initial contract expired. What this means is that after realizing the true demand of the product, they would then have had to create a new contract with the another manufacturer to restart mass production and redistribute to retailers, a process which effectively takes many months, especially when you consider that Nintendo no longer has the luxury of building up its stock beforehand since the adapter is already on the market (this would indeed provide a handy explanation as to why the adapter continues to appear at retailers, but only in limited quantities). With this in mind, I suspect the problem to start improving around Q2 or Q3.

 

[Deleted member]

I was fortunate enough to order one at the beginning of January on Gamestop's website. I say I was fortunate because it was taken down the very next day I ordered it. Crazy, right? I heard that they're supposed to have more next month though, so don't fret!

 

[Commander Fresh]

I was fortunate enough to order one at the beginning of January on Gamestop's website. I say I was fortunate because it was taken down the very next day I ordered it. Crazy, right? I heard that they're supposed to have more next month though, so don't fret!

They're constantly getting more, but because of the limited quantity, not many retailers even ship to their stores anymore. I was lucky enough to find the adapter in-store roughly just a month ago tops, but generally, going to a store and making a special order from the warehouse is the way to go.

 

[W.A.C.]

Does anyone know what's the cheapest GameCube adapter out there that works flawlessly with the Wii U and great with Dolphin? I'd order a Mayflash one, but the current sellers want way too much. I mostly want one because not having one is a huge problem with multiplayer gaming.

 

[Commander Fresh]

Does anyone know what's the cheapest GameCube adapter out there that works flawlessly with the Wii U and great with Dolphin? I'd order a Mayflash one, but the current sellers want way too much. I mostly want one because not having one is a huge problem with multiplayer gaming.

What you're asking for is huge for a product that's in so much demand. "Flawlessly" is a whole lot to ask for aftermarket peripherals, especially at low prices. People say the MayFlash works pretty good, but I'm still wary about just how little lag there is compared to the official adapter, and how long it's likely to last compared to the official one.

Bottom line is, if you're in no hurry to get an adapter, prices won't stay inflated forever (I've also mentioned in a previous post how I suspect the supply to start increasing soon). However, if the quality is really important to you, I would still recommend the official and MayFlash adapters (with precedence over the first one, of course).

 

[W.A.C.]

I've heard the Mayflash ones have no additional lag compared to the standard one. It's just in the meantime, trying to do multiplayer with my system is so annoying because I lack an adapter. Like if I want to do matches on campus with my Wii U, I'm insanely limited in how many people can do said matches and no-one would have the option to use the GameCube controller. So ****ing irritating.

 

[Commander Fresh]

I've heard the Mayflash ones have no additional lag compared to the standard one. It's just in the meantime, trying to do multiplayer with my system is so annoying because I lack an adapter. Like if I want to do matches on campus with my Wii U, I'm insanely limited in how many people can do said matches and no-one would have the option to use the GameCube controller. So ****ing irritating.

Why don't you try to get a few friends to pitch in together for an adapter?

 

[W.A.C.]

I just moved last month. Part of why it's suddenly a huge problem is because my friends can't just bring theirs because I no longer live near them.