If a delay didn't hurt enough, reports of a shortage of copies of Super Smash Bros. Brawl should have Japanese gamers clutching their chest and their reserve tickets.

Our sister site Japanator points to a couple of shortage issues that have already arisen in the island country. Japanese game retailer Lepton says that they are only getting 154 copies. We wish them luck in filling their 800+ preorders. Yikes! J-blog Canned Dogs says that the store is going as far as to purchase copies from other outlets at full price to satisfy demand. They managed to secure an additional 100 copies of the game at 7,350 yen each, which would cause them to lose money on the 6,800 yen game. I'm sweating for them.

Importer National Console Report also recently said that they've closed preorders due to the shortage:

Last night, vendors in Japan warned us that there might be a shortage of [SSBB] so we're closing preorders today. If the information turns out to be erroneous, we'll accept new preorders again.

We haven't seen any confirmed release numbers, but we've heard that shipments could be as low as 300,000 for launch. Next week's release might get a bit scary. Do you forsee any real brawls from the shortage of Super Smash Bros. Brawl?