On Friday, NeoGAF user ‘hiphoptherobot’ says a store decided to ship him an early Nintendo Switch unit. He subsequently posted three minutes of the startup UI as well as the world’s first unboxing.
Well, it turns out that he didn’t get it from a retailer and it was in-fact a stolen unit. The NeoGAF user is claiming that someone sold it to him and as soon as he was made aware that it was illegally stolen from a distribution centre, that he did return it to Nintendo.
It’s unclear whether he did in-fact know where it came from, but due to the fact that he wouldn’t name the retailer. It does seem suspicious.
Nintendo said in a statement:
“Earlier this week, individuals claimed to prematurely purchase a small number of Nintendo Switch systems from an unspecific retailer. Nintendo has determined these units were stolen in an isolated incident by employees of a U.S distributor, with one system being illegally resold. The individuals involved have been identified, terminated from their place of employment and are under investigation by local law enforcement authorities on criminal charges”
They also followed up saying that they are excited for customers to enjoy the wonders of the new systems for themselves:
“Nintendo Switch will launch worldwide on March 3, 2017, and we look forward to everyone being able to discover the wonders of the new system for themselves at that time”.
It’s always a massive shame when things like this happen in the industry. Mangers games have patiently waited to get their hands on the new Nintendo system, but unfortunately theft from distribution centres isn’t a rare occurrence and we’ve seen it happen in the gaming industry many times before.
We’re less than two weeks away from the offical launch of the Nintendo Switch. It will launch on March 3rd for $469.95.
Nintendo Ninjas are merciless. pic.twitter.com/jSfxVO4Ibr
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) February 19, 2017
