When future generations of gamers talk about a massive PR debacle in the video game industry, this will probably be one of the examples that come first.

All console manufacturers have had their issues with any console release, but Nintendo wins the award this year.

What console am I talking about? Drumroll… the New 3DS XL Majora’s Mask Limited edition, of course.

The device is nowhere to be found, was sold out within minutes on any site that had it, and bought by scalpers: people who buy an item just to resell them at a higher price point instantly, sometimes reselling a preordered item they haven’t received yet.

The New 3DS XL Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask Limited Edition sells for anywhere between $400 to $600 on Amazon at the time of this writing, or about 2 to 3 times the regular price. As a result, the product is getting terrible reviews (1.5 star on average) not because the product is bad, but because sellers are abusing the system.

Insane prices are insane

It  goes without saying that nobody should buy these at that price point, but people have mentioned that there is no official plan from Nintendo to release more of this collector’s edition. According to venturebeat, it was probably not Nintendo’s goal to cause such distress to honest customers by intentionally limiting stocks, but it is likely they didn’t predict the demand correctly. As a result, we might still see the device sell for those crazy prices for quite a while.

Have you been impacted by the crazy pricing of the Zelda New 3DS XL? Were you planning on getting one?

Note: if you desperately want the device, be aware that the prices on Amazon appear to be messed up: although they display the “best” offer as being about $550 right now, you can get it for $400 if you look at the “used and new” offers for the item. That’s twice the list price, but it’s “less” of a rip-off I guess.