Best Buy Unveils Special Silver Heavy Duty Sprocket

What?  Special Heavy Duty Sprocket
Where?  Best Buy
How Much?  $9.99 plus tax
Quantities?  Unknown at this Point

Tanks a lot Best Buy...

Just as everyone is trying to wrap up locating, ordering, or miraculously obtaining the last of SWAP Force Wave 3, we have a bomb shell dropped...Or I suppose, more of a tank and mines dropped.  Why, you ask?  Best Buy has unveiled a pre-order for a special Heavy Duty Sprocket.  She is up for the standard retail price of $9.99.  Have a look for yourself:

Click Here for the Link to BestBuy.com

It is believed that she will be a store exclusive, but that has not been 100% confirmed.  I would imagine that to be the case, think of her just like you would a Jade Flashwing or GITD Sonic Boom.  Similarly, since she is not in the 3DS Character List, I would venture to guess she will simply appear as her regular self in-game, but with the "Special" designation...just like any chase variant.

The base looks to be a bright silver, while the tack is either a greened bronze, or off-silver...We should know soon...As in this Sunday!

Best Buy will have these available in store on Sunday, January 12th, 2014...That said, you can ensure you get your Special Sprocket by Pre-Ordering her online.  There you can select store pickup, or simply have her shipped (and free at that with orders of $25 or more).

I opted to go that route and will see when I get her...

I do not frequent Best Buy, but if they do not already have some, or all of Wave 3 out on the shelves, I would imagine they have some, or all of Wave 3 ready to put out Sunday.

As always, my advice remains to pre-order and lock in the figure.  This literally just fell out of the sky and there is little known in regard to whether there will be a limited number of these figures, or enough to fill a small castle.  

As soon as she arrives, I will do a product showcase.  

As much as I don't enjoy frequenting Best Buy, I have dealt with them a few times recently (online anyway) and haven't had many issues.  This is, however, perhaps the best handling of a figure I have seen in quite some time.  I fully expect there will be plenty to go around Sunday, BUT just in case the ebay pirates set sail for your local Best Buy, they have offset this long worn fear by offering you the chance to pre-order.  Pay now and sail away with a safe day, or gamble on the release day.  There wasn't exactly a huge heads-up, but given the recent Target issues and trouble folks are having landing the rest of Wave 3, this is pretty much top-of-the-line in terms of satisfying the fan base.  Once more, if you have an interest in picking up this quick silver Golding, I would suggest you pre-order now!

Unboxing Scarlet Ninjini Skylanders Giants

What?  Scarlet Ninjini
Where Did You Get Her?  bestbuy.com via in-store pick up reservation
How Much Did She Cost?  $12.99 plus tax
What Lights-Up?  Genie Cloud, Eyes, Face/Hair to a degree
What Was Stock Like?  None in the store aside from my reserved figures...I could have gone in Saturday to get her, but had something to do Sunday so I put it off a day.

Unboxing Scarlet Ninjini

Please note that I spent the first 7:30 or so of the video outlining your options to land Scarlet...If you want to skip to the unboxing, go straight to around the 8:00 minute mark.  Similarly, the back end of the video was used to vent about Best Buy's continued, lackluster store policies.

Pictures: 

Scarlet & Card

Scarlet & Regular Ninjini

Scarlet and Ninjini

Scarlet, Front View on Portal

Scarlet, Back view on Portal

Stats: 

Scarlet Ninjini is +6 Armor and +10 Critical Hit over regular Ninjini!

Conclusion:

Scarlet Ninjini is quite interesting...not just the whole ninja-genie thing, but her actual figure.  With most "in-game variants" we see them locked to a certain store (Granite Crusher=Target, Molten Hot Dog=Walmart etc).  Scarlet Ninjini is EVERYWHERE.  GameStop, Best Buy, Target, Toys'R'Us, Walmart, and I'm sure very soon on Amazon.com.  What are we to make of this?

Well, this practice has never really been done before.  We have routinely seen the "in-game variants" stocked on release day only to sell out super fast, and disappear often for months...They sometimes reappear, but thus far it has been in very limited quantities and they are quick to sell out once more.

Do we assume Scarlet will be run-of-the-mill and a shelf warmer after the inital surge?  Or do we make note of the "quantities limited" notices on sales circulars from Walmart, Target, and Toys'R'Us and wonder if this isn't a big shipment into the US that is dispersed evenly and will quickly be depleted?  If so, will she come again, or is this temporary influx and omnipresence of Scarlet just a nice gesture and one that could be wrongly perceived by the less stalwart fans who ultimately wind up missing out?  As of right now, we just don't know.

From what I can tell, the diehards who still lacked her have been able to land Scarlet today for the most part...I have had a few tell me the scalpers cleaned the store out (see Target/Best Buy).  There has been a big influx of Scarlet listings on both eBay and Amazon from the retail pirates.

All I know to do is suggest you be diligent in tracking her down and get her for retail (or less) as soon as possible.  I would not at all be surprised to see this "Scarlet is everywhere" hype fade into a "Scarlet is nowhere..despite all the stores being able to sell her" reality.  That said, best case she routinely reappears at retailers in staggered intervals, but with this approach, we just don't have a base line to go by...

Hopefully you landed her today, if not already...Feel free to post up the conditions at your local stores and we will try to piece this together!

Scarlet Ninjini at Best Buy 5/18/2013

I am extremely tired, but...

I just ordered Scarlet Ninjini and the price was $12.99.

Yep, an in-game variant currently going for $30-40 online and she is debuting at Best Buy for the low price of $12.99.

But, why the post?  To help YOU out...Here is the link...Just click "check stores" and enter your info...all stores with stock will pop up...They claim they'll hold her for roughly 7-8 days so you should have plenty of time to pick her up if you go this route:

Scarlet Ninjini at Best Buy: In-Store Pickup for $12.99  <--click p="" there="">

Photo by Cassie

We know Target and Toys'R'Us will have her Sunday morning (which just seems to spell disaster in all likelihood).  I found out today that Walmart has her on hand as well (octaneblue has a picture up on his Twitter feed), but they are apparently joining the party late with a "purchase date" of Tuesday, May 21st, 2013.  I've yet to see Amazon with their batch accounted for, but I'm sure it will surface over the weekend or early next week.

GameStop has been selling her for over a week now, with shipments hitting the farther reaches of the US the last couple of days...I expect them to continue to ship out, just at an unknown interval at this point.

Again, personal experience says TRU's big promotions usually tank...big time.  They rarely have anything past limited stock on hand and in many cases, several stores go with no stock of the big launch item.  They sometimes orchestrate things well, but I've got 2 years worth of documentation in terms of Skylanders they routinely fall short of pleasing the masses...You are also likely to have to endure a line and ticket system at many stores.

Target has no quota on Skylanders (at least that I've ever seen or been made aware of)...This basically means if there were say 6-12 Scarlet Ninjnis on the shelf, an ebay pirate could pluck them all right at opening...Again, I have better things to do with my life than hang outside a locked door of a retailer...

My plan was to wait out GameStop, or get lucky with Amazon, but thanks to Best Buy's surprisingly good price and in-store pickup option I am not set and can avoid what would likely be a mess Sunday.

Hopefully you can take advantage of this surprise price and more surprising convenience and land your Scarlet Ninjini at Best Buy!