Amazon offers a 20 percent savings for Prime members who pre-order games or purchase them within two weeks of launch, but the retail giant is having issues fulfilling its Mario Kart 8 Deluxe pre-orders.
The delivery of my own copy of the game was delayed until tomorrow, and other fans have reached out through our tip line and social media accounts to complain of the same issue. I reached out to Amazon support to see what had happened.
“I’ve checked and see that due to an unexpected inventory issue, all of the order for this product have been delayed,” an Amazon employee stated I asked why my order had been delayed. “I can understand your excitement to have it on the release day, however we’ve faced a rare inventory issue which has delayed all the orders for this game. I hope you understand.”
That statement does not seem to be completely accurate, as other individuals have told us that they either have their copy of the game already or that it’s out for delivery, but the stock issue appears to be relatively common.
@BenKuchera Past three times I’ve preordered games from Amazon they’ve effed up the “release date delivery”. Never again. :(
— PKMNdoto (@ndoto) April 28, 2017
“We should have been notified so we could secure a copy outside of Amazon,” a message to our tip line stated. “When I called support, they gave me a month’s extension on my Prime, but they keep censoring my reviews of their service. I asked them how do I publicly rate their service like they allow for third party sellers, and they had no response other than to direct me to second level customer service which is contacting me in 24 hours.”
Others are reporting that Amazon is offering a free month of its Prime service to those who complain, and in my case I was told that they could process the refund today, and I was welcome to keep the game if it showed up tomorrow. My plan now involves a quick trip to GameStop to pick up a copy.
@BenKuchera Amazon has been screwing up day1 delivery for me a lot lately
— Keits (@TheKeits) April 28, 2017
It’s great that Amazon responding promptly to complaints and offering refunds or Prime extensions, but the release-day delivery is a big reason why many players purchase their games from Amazon. Let’s hope future launches are a bit smoother.
We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment, and will update the post if we receive new information.