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© Nintendo LifeThere is a famous story relating to the launch of the Super Famicom in Japan – an event that took place 30 years ago today – that Nintendo decided to ship the console to stores overnight to prevent the deliveries are not intercepted by Yakuza criminal gangs.
Dubbed “Operation Midnight Shipping,” the plan was concocted by Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi and his right-hand man Hiroshi Imanishi after the first got wind that the Yakuza were planning to steal Super Famicom shipments before they hit the stores. . Given the intense hype surrounding the console’s release – the successor to the Famicom and then by far Japan’s most popular console – the Yakuza rightly felt that high profits could be made by selling systems to retailers. inflated prices on the black market.
The story goes that in the early hours of November 21, 1990, 300,000 Super Famicom consoles were quietly loaded into vans and distributed across the country, before the Yakuza – or most of Japan itself – woke up. of his sleep. The operation was kept top secret, with only a small handful of people being told what time the trucks would leave, where they were going, and what cargo they contained. As a result, the Yakuza ended up empty-handed and the 300,000 launch systems returned to their rightful owners.
Fast forward to today, and it looks like the UK launch of the PlayStation 5 hasn’t been so lucky – and while the Yakuza is understandably not involved this time around, it looks like some Shady people have ruined the launch of Sony’s new system for some of its customers who pre-ordered with online retail giant Amazon.
One of those customers is our own Ant Dickens, who like several other UK buyers who pre-ordered with Amazon found that their PS5 console had been replaced with an entirely different item and the packaging had been sealed with tape. transparent (rather than the Amazon parcel strip). Others had received incorrect items (which tends to happen from time to time) while some customers had shipments marked as “ delivered ” that never even showed up, although the delivery van was in. view from their home:
One buyer was fortunate enough to get his PS5, but only after challenging the Amazon delivery guy, who appeared to be intending to get away with the console:
Amazon has released the following statement to our sister site, Push Square, but it would appear that at the moment all it can offer disappointed customers affected by this shameful event is a full refund, as PS5 stock is running out:
Our goal is to make our customers happy, and that hasn’t happened for a small portion of those orders. We are truly sorry and are investigating exactly what happened. We contact all customers who have had a problem and let us know so we can fix it. Anyone who has had a problem with an order can contact our customer service team for assistance.
Obviously, the way people get their consoles has changed in the three decades since the Super Famicom launched in Japan; while Nintendo could control how stock was delivered to retail stores in 1990, in the modern era online ordering is king – even more so at the moment, as we are in the midst of a global pandemic that prevents people to access physical stores.
This obviously opens up the possibility for those responsible for delivering the goods to steal them before they reach the customer, especially considering that these consoles will almost certainly be sold for huge profit in the secondary market at people who desperately want it. own a PS5 this Christmas side.
Have you been affected by this problem? Let us know with a comment.
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