Club Nintendo is Being Replaced

[Tanooki]

That's pretty cheap and low of them to go that route, but not a surprise either having gone all digital and laid off on the physical stuff for awhile.

I'd just do it, glue it, and frame it. If it looks bad with the little pieces, maybe get some matching color pencils or some art supply and just touch up the puzzle edges (which with that use of color would take time) and be done with it. That bag won't hold up well unless you put it away somewhere which kind of defeats the purpose.

...concerned now I am about that zelda pouch.

[ejamer]

...concerned now I am about that zelda pouch.

The older pouches that Club Nintendo offered were rather nice. I own two, and really appreciate having them to hold my loose GBA carts and GBA Micro console. The quality is nice enough that I thought hard about grabbing the Zelda one despite not having any "need" for it.

The only thing holding me back? Older pouches didn't have any printing on them so I wasn't sure if that meant they would made of a different fabric, or what the print/pattern quality would look like on the final product...

I ended up grabbing another 3DS game card case - not something I particularly need, but it was relatively inexpensive and should be the same quality as the ones previously offered through Club Nintendo (which were rather nice).

Really disappointing to hear about the puzzle quality though. I had low expectations, and am still underwhelmed by photos people are posting. Other prizes that I've seen so far fall right in line with my expectations... so it's a shame the "coulda been awesome" Zelda puzzle is such a let down.

[Tanooki]

I haven't seen anyone with the zelda pouch yet. I knew (couldn't get anyway, points) the majora bag would be lightweight junk and small just because it looked like it was cut from the same size/material the pikmin bag was people griped about. I have that red/gray reversable pouch from them from a couple years back and it's fantastic and I'll keep usually my new 3DS in it if I don't need the bigger case with a few games or my gameboy stuff in it. I figured one more would be helpful, but now I'm concerned it'll be some crappy poorly built small nylon thing with some heat embossed zelda art that'll peel off with any given rubbing(pocket) against it after not very long. Maybe I'm wrong, it'll be that nice feel of the one I have, but the hopes aren't there anymore.

I know one could argue it's free, no real reason to complain, but it's not exactly given how much had to be bought to get those points. It's a shame they let things slide so badly from when they did the 5000 Luigi's Mansion run trophy or the platinum mario crew one from years earlier as I have those. They hit a high bar with that and the Ball game & watch, then it went into a spiral.

[ejamer]

... some crappy poorly built small nylon thing with some heat embossed zelda art that'll peel off ...

Yes - exactly my worry as well. Too bad there wasn't any way to know before ordering. if they turn out really nice, I'll be kicking myself for taking the safe option instead.

..., then it went into a spiral.

Possibly related: I think Nintendo's profits started spiraling around the same time that prize quality diminished? Kind of makes sense. The Wii/DS "printing money" days ended and Club Nintendo needed to find cheaper ways to offer prizes.

There were still some good physical rewards over the years though. The Mario and Friends statue, Luigi statue, 3DS XL charging cradles, along with some high quality pouches and 3DS game card cases were my favorite rewards. (However, I was always jealous that we didn't get orchestrated CD soundtracks or the SNES-style Wii Classic Controller.)

[Tanooki]

Yeah it did, and they've never really recovered since despite some recent up beat story of a quarter of eeking out a little profit. Once they weren't printing money as the joke went, the prizes dried up because digital downloads are free to them.

I didn't like us being excluded from the soundtracks either as they're the most practical if you don't just want to steal the MP3s. Recently I found a sealed Smash Bros red/blue set from the wiiu+3ds download prize locally and I bought that up. The music on it is fantastic, and they really should have made that one more wide spread.

[Sarge]

I got my Majora's Mask puzzle in. I thought it'd be in a box, but it's a pouch. You can see a few of 'em on eBay. I honestly don't know that it's going to hold value at all, so I really should sell mine on there.

(For the record, I haven't sold anything on eBay, no matter how much I talk about it. )

[ejamer]

So remaining physical prizes have had their prices slashed at Club Nintendo.

You know, because some people might not regret ordering the prizes they did enough already and need that extra salt in the wound of seeing the same thing for half as many coins now. Good old Nintendo - always finding ways to make fans feel disappointed!


(In reality, they are probably forced to order each item in certain increments, and just trying to get rid of the excess product now that they know what the baseline number should be. Makes sense... just doesn't make me feel any better about dropping an order relatively early and finding out that pricing has shifted now.)

[8bit]

So remaining physical prizes have had their prices slashed at Club Nintendo.

You know, because some people might not regret ordering the prizes they did enough already and need that extra salt in the wound of seeing the same thing for half as many coins now. Good old Nintendo - always finding ways to make fans feel disappointed!


(In reality, they are probably forced to order each item in certain increments, and just trying to get rid of the excess product now that they know what the baseline number should be. Makes sense... just doesn't make me feel any better about dropping an order relatively early and finding out that pricing has shifted now.)

oh wow. thats crazy. but it allowed me to pickup the zelda 3ds pouch so im not really complaining...

[Sarge]

Well, I have precisely zero coins left, so... yeah. Maybe a little aggravated about the puzzle at 400 coins, but not really. It's fake money anyway. I probably could have gotten another digital game that I didn't need.

[Tanooki]

I have 125, just hosed out of some cards I wouldn't be thrilled with! Wee...