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

[mikeyts]

This guitar is awesome, but it appears to many that it has been totally mishandled all over the place by somebody/nobody/everybody involved & nobody wants to fess up, just play the blame game or sit under the cone of scilence. It's not like people aren't buying it, right? Just not able to find it in stores, or get it online except from one place. One that's not a music place. Seriously, right?

I bought one from Buy.com last week and Newegg.com is still showing them in stock. People have reported walking into Best Buy stores all over the country and finding them on the shelves. In no way do I believe that demand is exceeding supply in the United States. As hmxhenry said above, they're still some in the retail channel (I wonder why the "hmx" in his username is uniquely uncapitilized? An effort to be different and cool, no doubt ).

When I looked a couple of weeks ago, Google Shopping was showing them available in 7 online stores, including Guitar Center, Musicians Friend and Sam Ash (I think--that or Sweetwater). Most of these listing suddenly disappeared, no doubt due to them trying to order them from Fender and being told that the product had been discontinued.

People are calling and e-mailing Fender asking about this product, Fender reps are presumably looking it up in some official source--probably just searching for the product in an internal database--and seeing it listed as discontinued. That seems like something that would be very quick and easy for Fender to put a rapid end to.

[Tommy Gun]

I bought one from Buy.com last week

I bought one from Buy.com too, got it a couple days ago.

As hmxhenry said above, they're still some in the retail channel (I wonder why the "hmx" in his username is uniquely uncapitilized? An effort to be different and cool, no doubt ).

That's not the worst of it -- his name isn't even really Henry!

[mikeyts]

That's not the worst of it -- his name isn't even really Henry!

Yeah--I found that out on his Twitter page . I assume it has something to do with the Henry Rollins quote in his sig. Whatever.

[lvmathemagician]

I bought one from Buy.com too, got it a couple days ago.


That's not the worst of it -- his name isn't even really Henry!

That's ok, my name's not Mathemagician either.

[conejita_diabla]

Am I a terrible person for wanting to suggest we all go talk about this in the Squier forum on the Fender site? <vbeg>

[wickedbadz]

Actually at this point I'm not sure if Harmonix even cares. I've dealt with Fender numerous times over issues and they don't just ignore you, they also don't lie to retailers who sell millions of dollars in Fender products, not thousands like Best Buy.

This isn't like the local mom and pop music store rumor here...major retailers consider this item discontinued because Fender says it is...Guitar Center=Discontinued, Sweetwater=Discontinued, American Musical=Discontinued, Sam Ash= Discontinued...now I'm sorry but those retailers buy more Fender products in 1 week than Best Buy does all year and they don't lie to people, they're all about money.

As far as people saying it's the costs....na, they aren't paying retail for it anyhow they always make a profit.

I'm 99.9% sure the guitar is discontinued, when Fender will simply make a press release that it is and why it happened is as good of guess as anyones, they really have never done such a thing before, they simply discontue a item and that is that.

Don't expect Fender to feel sorry for people because this product is discontinued, they don't care, they sell thousands of items this is only 1 of them and it's not a huge seller for them anyhow.

[mikeyts]

Actually at this point I'm not sure if Harmonix even cares.

Oh, I'm sure that Harmonix cares, no matter how indifferent Fender is. Though no huge number of people were ever going to buy these at this price point, the mere availability of them created a ton of positive press for the game. Their manufacture being discontinued a few months after they started shipping is going to be an embarrassment. I hate to think what kind of analysis the gaming press will make of it.

If, of course, it actually is discontinued.

[Obi_Wan_Kenoli]

Oh, I'm sure that Harmonix cares, no matter how indifferent Fender is. Though no huge number of people were ever going to buy these at this price point, the mere availability of them created a ton of positive press for the game. Their manufacture being discontinued a few months after they started shipping is going to be an embarrassment. I hate to think what kind of analysis the gaming press will make of it.

If, of course, it actually is discontinued.

I said it before, I'll say it again. What a marketing platform that could be for Ubisoft and Rocksmith if they really were the only game in town if you want to "play guitar". If the Squier is in fact discontinued and no new partner is found to produce an actual guitar for Pro, regardless of the depth of the introduction Pro Guitar/Bass offers, Rocksmith will have that particular feather in it's cap; regardless of if the product is actually as good at teaching what it sets out to as RB.

If it establishes itself as THE game for guitar, whether or not the claim is truly legit, it'll be tough to climb out from under that. It's similar to Guitar Hero becoming the catch all brand name for instrument games, regardless of my belief that RB was superior on the execution end of that front for many titles. It's just hard to get out from under that.

[jimhenry]

This is an interesting turn in the speculation. Maybe the real problem is that Fender doesn't care about Harmonix and Rock Band. Maybe Fender realized just how far out of their core business the Rock Band Squier took them and they are just trying to get out and put it behind them as fast as they can. Maybe Fender has decided no matter how much profit they might make or how easy it is to make the Rock Band Squier, it just doesn't fit with their business and they don't want to be involved with it anymore.

If the above guess is correct, Harmonix is probably going to have a hard time getting a straight answer from Fender and a harder time trying to put a positive spin on this turn of events.

If all this is correct, I don't think it is really an adverse statement about Rock Band or Harmonix but a lot of people are likely to take it that way. It could just be that someone high up in Fender said this product doesn't make sense for Fender, get us out of this pronto.

[Obi_Wan_Kenoli]

Would be similar thinking to Viacom at least. Can't argue with the business logic. Just speculating of course.