Fender Squier current status & availability - IMPORTANT INFO - HMX update to OP 6/27

[Boioioing]

I guess what I don't understand is this - every person who's heard from Fender directly (and there have been a few now) has been told it's discontinued. So why do they have to "look at retailers"? What does that have to do with anything?

Maybe Fender's alleged desire to discontinue the product has to do with its relationship with retailers and their lack of desire to carry the product. The profit margins are tiny and stock space is limited. Most instrument retailers don't want to end up being video game stores, so I'm sure they're hesitant.

[GNFfhqwhgads]

Maybe Fender's alleged desire to discontinue the product has to do with its relationship with retailers and their lack of desire to carry the product.

Doubt it. They were WEEKS out of Best Buy PAYING for exclusive selling.

[Boioioing]

Doubt it. They were WEEKS out of Best Buy PAYING for exclusive selling.

Sure. But in the rest of the world, only musical instrument stores carry the product. There IS a rest of the world.

[conejita_diabla]

Maybe Fender's alleged desire to discontinue the product has to do with its relationship with retailers and their lack of desire to carry the product. The profit margins are tiny and stock space is limited. Most instrument retailers don't want to end up being video game stores, so I'm sure they're hesitant.

In which case I'd think they'd have done all that research before making a corporate decision to discontinue. Not saying it's not what might be happening, but just that it seems an odd way to do things if so.

[GNFfhqwhgads]

Sure. But in the rest of the world, only musical instrument stores carry the product. There IS a rest of the world.

Yup. So? Europe only got a single shipment early on, no? You act like the rest of the world GOT enough Squiers to test in-store demand. Not to mention there are unfilled preorders(even in that spooky 'rest of the world' you talk of), which seem like an obvious thing to do to squeeze the last few bucks out of it if they WERE going to discontinue it.

[steel36]

HMX already knows the answer - they are looking for a way to position a sensitive issue which reflects negatively on the future of the RB platform. The gen-pop already thinks rhthym games are dead -- the "failure" of HMX's greatest RB innovation only months after its release would look awful to those that are paying attention.

Or maybe some super-secret good news is cooking (i.e. partnership with Gibson!). I guess we'll see.

[Ultrace]

This is a reasonable response. I truly believe the stalling on this is coming from Fender not Harmonix, maybe I should have made that more clear. But not sure why they need to investigate retailers when many people have gotten communication straight from Fender that the product was discontinued. They are trying to paint it as a 3rd party retailer problem, but that's not quite right and further increases the confusion when there is evidence to the contrary.

They're not trying to "paint it" as anything, they said Fender is looking into it with retailers, nothing more. That doesn't necessarily mean that retailers, Fender or Harmonix is at fault.

I'm always amazed at people (not just here, but anywhere) who want information about something and then when a company indicates they're looking into it--presumably to provide the more thorough or accurate answer possible--many of those same people chide them for taking too long. Quick or correct--it can't always be both.

If someone reading this thread is a Squier owner (as we are), then this delay really means nothing to you apart from curiosity; you've bought the product already and either A) can continue to use it with the pro guitar DLC being provided if it's not being discontinued or B) can continue to use it <i>or</i> possibly sell it for a profit if it's being discontinued. If you haven't bought or tried to buy the product yet, you should probably have an idea of whether you want it or not regardless of this news in which case you can choose to wait for more information or, if you are afraid that the item might become even less obtainable, take alternate methods to try and get it. If you're one of those people who doesn't have it and isn't even sure if they want it, well, any possible news of the discontinuing of the product can't be that big a blow to you.

[DackAttac]

...or, the third option, Squier ownership is irrelevant and more fuel is wanted to dump on the pyre of alarmist bull****.

[Pitch-Black]

This is a reasonable response. I truly believe the stalling on this is coming from Fender not Harmonix, maybe I should have made that more clear. But not sure why they need to investigate retailers when many people have gotten communication straight from Fender that the product was discontinued. They are trying to paint it as a 3rd party retailer problem, but that's not quite right and further increases the confusion when there is evidence to the contrary.

I would tend to think if there is stalling going on it's on Fender's part, too. I also think HMX is a lot more concerned about this than Fender or we here on the forums are. I don't think the conflicting reports are being missed by HMX at all. Which is why I think they are going to wait until they have something very concrete before updating us. They want to make sure, I believe, that they don't have to retract anything they report here. If I were HMX the very fact that people have gotten info on the Squire being discontinued from Fender themseves would make me very hesitant to report anything until I was 100% possitive about it; even if the info I had to report was directly from Fender exec's themselves.

[Funk-n-stein]

They're not trying to "paint it" as anything, they said Fender is looking into it with retailers, nothing more. That doesn't necessarily mean that retailers, Fender or Harmonix is at fault.

HarmonixHenry's first post on this included the following "Initial responses from our contacts at Fender indicate that the Squier has not been discontinued at this time, so there may be some confusion at the retail level."

With multiple communications coming STRAIGHT from Fender saying the guitar was discontinued, I'd take the above comment as Fender painting it as a 3rd party problem. Why do they need to look into it with retailers? Why can't they just say, "whoops our bad, someone screwed up here at Fender," or "that communication was correct, we are discontinuing the Rock Band Squier." With communication clearly coming from inside Fender, it shouldn't take that long to get to the bottom of things with an 'accurate answer.' If the only discontinuation messages had been from retailers, this would be a non-issue. Fender should have known all along whether the guitar has been discontinued or not and if there wasn't something fishy going on, would have put all the speculation to rest immediately to avoid getting a black eye and harming their partner. There has never been a direct response from Fender saying "The Rock Band 3 Fender Squier Stratocaster is still in production and is not discontinued at this time" - Why not? How hard should that be if it's the truth?

Honestly, you're right, I already own a Squier and aside from the possibility of replacement parts not being available as long as I might like, it doesn't really affect me. My problem is that I feel the community is being jerked around (again, not necessarily by Harmonix) and I don't like being jerked around.