"Dear Nintendo of America,
In the United States, 'The Wind Waker HD Limited Edition' with Ganondorf statue was a GameStop exclusive and sold out within one week. Demand for this particular edition is still high, and those of us Zelda fans who unfortunately missed our opportunity to reserve a pre-order within that short window of time feel rather kicked to the curb, I hate to tell you. How many units were available for pre-order, and will more be coming available before the game's October 4th release date?
Thank you for your time. Sincerely,
Iwatasan"
"Hello Iwatasan,
Thank you for writing. I can certainly understand your interest in the special edition of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, and I'm sorry to hear that you were unable to preorder it from GameStop. I know this isn't what you were hoping to hear, but Nintendo does not dictate when, or how many copies, of games are available for presale.
We know that many people believe Nintendo decides when stores receive shipments of our products and in what quantities. However, those decisions are made by the retailer's corporate office and are likely based on a variety of different factors: a particular store's sales volume, the population density of the region it serves, weather patterns. Any or all of these might mean that the store in the next town receives dozens of a particular product while the store you normally visit gets a fraction of that.
I know you were hoping for another answer, and I appreciate your understanding. I would recommend continuing to work with your local GameStop retail stores to see what options they can provide.
Sincerely,
Nintendo of America"
Surprisingly straightforward response I thought, and on a Sunday afternoon no less...not even a business day.
If what they say is true then this whole TWWHD LE shortage has been fully orchestrated by GameStop. It was yesterday afternoon I sent my message to NoA, and I also sent GameStop exactly the same message, so we'll see if and when GS ever gets back to me about it. At the very least I want to know how many preorders they took and why they decided, apparently
on their own, to cut it off so abruptly... and I'm still sort of naively hoping I'll get in touch with someone at corporate who will be like "Oh, you just need 2 copies? OK fine we'll hook you up."