Nintendo’s retro console, the NES Mini, is fast turning into a great little gift for this Christmas, and typically that’s meant that it’s sold out absolutely everywhere.
And, because this is the internet, that’s meant that if you’re not careful you might end up paying way over the (fairly reasonable) asking price of $60/£50 for the console.
We’ve scoured the internet to find the best places to buy the console. A lot of them are currently out of stock, but we’ve tried to focus on picking the places that are most likely to get stock in next.
Best place to buy the NES Mini USA
If you’re looking to buy a NES Mini in the USA, then Amazon is looking like your best bet right now. The store itself is currently out of stock (aside from some frankly absurdly priced Minis on the marketplace), but a recent tweet from Amazon has promised that the store should have more in stock before Christmas. Watch this space.
There will be more opportunities to purchase the NES Classic this holiday. Stay tuned!December 8, 2016
On Nintendo’s own site, four other retailers are listed; Best Buy, GameStop, Target and Walmart, but all are currently out of stock, and have given little indication of when they might have the hardware available to purchase once more, aside from Best Buy sending out some vague promotional emails.
Your best bet if you don’t want to wait for Amazon to have the console back in stock appears to be trying to find it in-store at GameStop, which reportedly has the hardware available intermittently.
If you’re willing to turn to the second-hand market, then there’s always eBay (in addition to the Amazon Marketplace), but prices have been climbing steeply as the console has been hard to find.
Best place to buy a NES Mini UK
It’s been almost permanently out of stock since it was released, but our top pick of where to buy the NES Mini is Nintendo’s own store. You’re never going to pay more than its official price, and in our experience the store offers a fairly decent customer experience.
Outside Nintendo’s own store, Amazon has the item listed, but has been out of stock almost as consistently as the Nintendo Store.
You might be able to find the NES Mini in-store at select Toys R Us branches, but it’s unfortunately not available online at this time.
Funstock Retro is also out of stock, but it has a neat notification option that it might be worth registering your details with in order to receive an email when the store gets stock (although there’s no guarantee this will be before Christmas.
Other options include Game, Smyths Toys, and GameSeek but, yep you guessed it, they’re all out of stock, leaving you with little option but to pay some pretty expensive second-hand prices at eBay if you want to get your hands on it.
We’ll update this page with stock availability as and when the console becomes available.
- Check out our full NES Mini review if you're still on the fence about the console.
