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Report: Amazon cracking down on third-party sales of Nintendo products

Some merchants who sell Nintendo products have reportedly received notices they will need to get Nintendo's approval if they wish to continue selling old and new Nintendo games and hardware on Amazon.

Alex Wawro, Contributor

November 1, 2019

1 Min Read
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Some merchants who sell Nintendo products have reportedly received notices that they will need to get Nintendo's approval if they wish to continue selling old and new Nintendo games and hardware on Amazon.

While neither Nintendo nor Amazon have yet publicly confirmed this, an email one vendor purportedly received from Amazon and passed on to The Verge spells out the new requirement and stipulates that "if you do not obtain approval to sell these products prior to 2019-10-31, your listings for these products will be removed."

The vendor claimed they received the warning on the 31st, making it effectively impossible for them to contact Nintendo and get approval before the new requirement went into effect.

Gamasutra has contacted representatives of Amazon and Nintendo for confirmation and further clarification of this new requirement. If it remains in place, this will presumably put a stop to the lion's share of used Nintendo games and hardware sales conducted via Amazon.

The Verge helpfully points out that this new arrangement is much akin to the deal Amazon hammered out with Apple this time last year, which saw Apple selling its products directly on Amazon while Amazon limited sales of Apple products to the company itself and its authorized resellers. 

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