Oops! If you breathed a sigh of relief as you locked down your SNES Classic pre-order on Walmart.com Friday night, it’s time to start hyperventilating again, because the retailer has just canceled the orders en masse.
“Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, the Super Nintendo Classic Edition was mistakenly made available last Friday evening ahead of the official release date,” reads an email that Walmart just sent to those who pre-ordered a SNES Classic. “We, regrettably, will have to cancel this item on your order. We know that this is incredibly disappointing to you, and we’re truly sorry for this mistake.”
If you still have a Walmart pre-order that hasn’t been canceled, the wording of this email indicates that your SNES Classic is not long for this world, either.
Sporting 20 of the Super Nintendo’s best-loved games like Super Mario World and Final Fantasy III, as well as the unreleased Star Fox 2, the SNES Classic is sure to be one of 2017's hottest holiday items when it is released on September 29 for $79.99. But the minuscule supplies of last year’s NES Classics have the company’s fans seeing visions of having to pay scalpers hundreds of dollars on eBay just for the chance to get one.
Hopefully, when real pre-orders do go live (if that happens), there will be enough to go around. In the meantime, Walmart probably just lost itself many a customer with this mishandling. (Right up until they have another exclusive Amiibo, I mean.)