How can Nintendo be so good about building hype and so bad when it comes to delivering on that hype?

A lot of us want to buy a Super NES Classic Edition, but the sad truth is: only a fraction will actually be able to do that. Unless you actually know someone at Nintendo, you’re stuck relying on a right place/right time scenario to work out in your favor.

As much as I don’t want any of you swooping in to buy a Classic that could have been mine, I’m also here to help you, our dear readers. So here’s my not-at-all-guaranteed strategy for throwing $80 at Nintendo in exchange for a Star Fox 2 machine.

Open tabs in your browser for every single online retailer’s SNES Classic product page and reload it semi-regularly. That’s pretty much it. Sign up for any alerts that you’re able to, but know that you can’t really count on them. For a product like this, pre-orders will typically sell out before your notification goes through.

The best I can do to help, then, is provide a list of all the product pages out there. Note that these links point to U.S.-based stores specifically; if you’re shopping from outside the country, make sure you have a local friend who can receive orders; failing that, check with the retailer to see if they’ll ship internationally.

• Amazon

• Best Buy

• GameStop

• Walmart

I’ve also been watching B&H, Newegg, Target, and Toys R Us, but nothing’s materialized on any of their websites just yet. I’ll do my best to update this post as soon as new listings appear. The Mashable Games team will also be keeping an eye on pre-order opportunities and re-sharing this post whenever a new one pops up.

That said, I tend to think your best bet for up-to-the-minute status updates is @Wario64 on Twitter. That account — along with Amazon’s PrimeNow delivery service — is the reason I scored an NES Classic in 2016.