From: rusbasan@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan)
Subject: Sega CD Delay
Keywords: Sega Genesis CD
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 23:21:15 GMT


In case some of you were expecting to have your hands on a Sega CD
today and are wondering where they are, I got the inside story from
a local video game shop owner.

He had been taking pre-orders for some time, and the ship date was
to be today.  I ordered one and stopped by to pick it up, and he
told me that they hadn't arrived yet, and he didn't have any idea
whether or not they would be in at all today.

I prodded him a little, and he told me that while he was doing
everything possible to get his hands on some, his distributor was
giving him the runaround.  While I was there, he called the distributor
again, and he finally admitted to the store owner that they hadn't
received any CD drives from Sega yet!  According to the store owner,
this means the earliest he will get them is on Thursday.

He said that Sega first began trying to sell the thing in the early
summer, and they were getting very, very low orders (like major
chains only wanting 85 for all of their stores combined).  Coupled
with the fact that the Mega CD had basically flopped in Japan, Sega
had very low expectations.  They decided to wait until around
Christmas to sell the CD units.

Sega only made 20,000 initially, and they started an advertising
campaign which has increased demand way beyond what they expected.
People are allowing their customers to pre-order, and apparently
more than 20,000 people want the CD drive *now*.  Sega says that
another 130,000 will be made before Christmas, but right now the
situation is chaotic.

The guy I talked to said that people are not very happy with Sega.
Everyone wants the CD drive, but Sega is going to have to choose who
gets them and how many they can have.  Initially they had agreed
to provide this guy with more than enough to fill his pre-orders
(he has 12), but he says now they won't even guarantee that he'll
get 12.  He said he talked to a vice-president at Sega (which is
where most of this info comes from).  When the VP told him how bad
the situation was, the owner of the store told him that he had plenty
Turbo Duos and he was going to start pushing those when people
came in wanting Sega CD's, as they have been doing lately.  He said
the VP nearly had a fit about that and promised to do what he could
to get him some Sega CD units.

He was supposed to get some CD players in today, but apparently Sega
didn't ship any to his distributor yet.  I have no idea why his
distributor tried to hide that fact until he was forced to admit it.

Well, that's the story as I heard it.  As I said, I have mine ordered,
and the store owner assures me that he will fill pre-orders in the
order in which he got them and that he will not sell a single unit
over the counter until every pre-order has been filled.  I'm hoping
to have it within a week or so.

By the way, if any has managed to get their hands on one, please
post some news about it!

-- 
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  / Bob Rusbasan                  |     Dance to the tension       \
 /  rusbasan@expert.cc.purdue.edu |      of a world on edge         \
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Newsgroups: rec.games.video