With the increasingly-serious spread of the novel coronavirus encouraging more people to stay home, there’s been an increase in demand forNintendo’s weird fitness-RPGRing Fit Adventureas an alternative to going to the gym. So much so, in fact, that the game is now virtually impossible to find in the Americas.
This probably won’t be too surprising for many, given how things have progressed with the disease known as COVID-19. The situation has gotten to the point where entire countries are on lockdown to curb the pandemic and governments are calling for people to maintain as much distance between one another as possible. More than that, though, it’s been expected that the growing number of quarantines wouldhave a major effect on the availability of the Nintendo Switchand other electronic products largely manufactured in China, where the coronavirus originated and hit hardest so far.
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And now, inRing Fit Adventure’s case, that’s become a reality. Polygon reports that the game has pretty much disappeared from all major retailers in the US, with chains like GameStop and Best Buy stating that they do not currently have the game available at any store located within 100 miles of several of the country’s most populated cities.
According to Polygon, this extends to all major online stores across the US and Canada. This was further corroborated byNintendoitself, which confirmed the shortages in a statement to the site that read, “TheRing Fit Adventuregame is selling out at various retail locations in the Americas. We are working to provide more units as soon as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.”
What Nintendo didn’t state, though, was whether the shortages is primarily due to concerns over coronavirus, but it’s clear that the disease, at the very least, has had a sizable part in it. In China alone, the demand for cheap at-home exercise solutions has led to ahuge spike in sales forRing Fit Adventure, to the point that re-sellers who bought the game from overseas (as it has yet to officially release in China) have been able to sell it for upwards of $250.
Whatever the case, it’s looking like, for the time being, consumers are either going to have to turn to overpriced third-party sales on sites like eBay or something else to exercise at home. Unless Nintendo is able to somehow increase production and distribution amid the growing constraints of the coronavirus pandemic, the closest many people will be able to get toRing Fit Adventurefor cheap is throughSuper Smash Bros Ultimate’s Spirit Board.
