Nintendo's Endless Ocean has Ended!

Nintendo of America is going to be releasing Endless Ocean 2 sometime in the first quarter of 2010.

There may be many of you, like myself, that never played the original Endless Ocean.

I started looking in May of this year for the original game at my local Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy stores only to not find it on the shelves.

I searched on Amazon.com, Wal-Mart.com, BestBuy.com, etc., all with the same results...the game wasn't listed on their sites or was "out of stock" as a new game.

Being that Endless Ocean was developed by a 2nd Party, Arika, and it was only $30 brand new, I wanted to buy it NEW and not used, to help support the 2nd Party efforts of Arika. I'm not a huge fan of buying my games "used", as I would prefer to get them new and support the companies that developed the games.

I finally contacted Nintendo this week, and asked them about the situation and here's my original email and their reply:

"I've been trying to locate Endless Ocean since at least May of this year, but I can't find it new at any store or even online.

Amazon, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Best Buy, etc., don't have the game in stores and have actually removed the game from their websites in most cases.

Has Endless Ocean stopped being produced? If so, am I supposed to buy it used?

Sincerely,
Scott"

Nintendo's reply:

"Hello Scott,

I was sorry to hear that you haven't been able to locate a copy of Endless Ocean.  Unfortunately, that game is no longer being published by Nintendo.  As such, you might consider checking the secondhand video game market to see if you can locate a copy.  This includes retail stores that deal in used games, pawn shops, garage sales, and auction websites.

For assistance with finding stores that carry used or secondhand video game products, head to the "Where to Buy" section of our website(www.nintendo.com) and click on the "Older Systems, Games, and Accessories" link.  Below I've included a direct address to this page on our site: 

http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/retail/index.jsp#oldproduct

I wish you the best of luck in your search.

Sincerely,

Nintendo of America Representative"

Their answer was fair enough and they even supplied a link on their very own site to help me in my search for a used copy of the game.  I was just a little surprised the game isn't being published now, AND they even encouraged me to find the game used, instead of sending me a link or even attempting to promote Endless Ocean 2.

With all the arguments for and against buying used games, this is an instance where I think it's 100% okay to buy it used, because it's the only way to now buy Endless Ocean.

So, if you are looking to buy the original Endless Ocean before Endless Ocean 2 comes out next year, you can start by using a link on Nintendo's very own site, http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/retail/retail_used.jsp.