Club Nintendo Swag or “How Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nintendo of America”
Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 1:12pm by Zac
After receiving my Club Nintendo calendar, it got me thinking about the other cool stuff that I could buy in the Rewards section of the website. I headed over to club.nintendo.com, and found myself faced with a few things that maybe piqued my interest, but nothing that I was overly excited about. Some posters, game cases, and the like. Then, out of curiosity I headed over to other Club Nintendo’s around the world. I was shocked at the amount of awesome stuff that people outside of North America are offered for their points! The following is a recounting a summary of some of the cool stuff currently available on various Clubs around the world, including Japan, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia.
MUSIC
The first, and possibly one of the coolest things I noticed on the foreign stores was the array of music available from Club Nintendo. Sure, if you like to sail the seven seas of the Internet in your pirate ship you could probably find some of these albums, but I for one would LOVE to have these available in the North American store. There is also no reason to let these be available for the entire world. Don’t feel like you have to burn CDs, Nintendo. Have us pay the points then forward us to a page where we can download them, or better yet, give us a code that we can plug into iTunes. That way you can make your music available for paid download as well. For someone who frequents OCRemix for my video game music fix, I would spend A TON of my points on music.
APPARREL
Who wouldn’t love to sport that sweet Wii Music shirt?! Alright, so neither would I, but the idea to have some great t-shirts, hats, and even sweat rags is another great thing I would like to see. Now lets make clear that I’m fully aware that the North American market is Nintendo’s largest audience, and to have these made may be too big of an investment for them to justify. Then again, why not just create a limited number of each item (eg. a New Super Mario Bros hat), offer it until it sells out, and have another t-shirt ready for the site.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Finally, I want to cover just a few more of the cool stuff that we in North America have not been offered. First, in Japan, Club Nintendo members have the option of custom-made business cards sporting their Mii. Not so good for the business world, but cool none-the-less.
Second, the awesome statue of Link and Epona. I would LOVE to put this thing on my shelf for all to see.
Third…a DS?! On Club Nintendo?! Granted, this DS Lite is a TON of points (this Club Nintendo had it running at 30,000 points, though I think their system is different than North America (more on that later). A special edition DSi, Wii controller, or the like could something great for hardcore Nintendo fans to strive for.
Which brings me to my last item on the list. This Super Famicom Classic Controller for Wii was a 2008 Platinum Members. North American Club Nintendo members would LOVE some special edition hardware, and just seeing this thing makes me drool. Very very cool. (Old news, I know, but worth reflecting back on)
ROUND ONE IS UP, ON TO ROUND TWO!
I don’t want to present all this stuff to bring on the rage to Nintendo of America. In fact, quite the opposite. This first year of Club Nintendo in North America has been a good test round, and although Doc Louis’ Punch Out was essentially a demo for the full version of the game, the rewards were nice and my desk calendar is now placed lovingly on my desk. As time moves on, I think we can hope for some of these greater options in the future. For now, I’m saving my points for when Nintendo pulls out something actually worth spending them on…unless I give in and buy the Game & Watch Collection that is no longer out of stock.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I really want that Zelda Statue.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Do not purchase G&W collection… It’s like Game and Watch Gallery, but… without the fun.
Anyways, what on earth is a Touch Generations soundtrack???
November 5th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
It’s more than likely pieces of music taken from random touch generations games like Tetris DS.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I got the game & watch collection. It only has 3 games, but its great to collect and show off i guess.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I got the Game and Watch DS game and the Zelda posters.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
That’s not fair at all! We should get some of that stuff, like the statue… amazing!
November 5th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
On the Gamecube, I preordered Wind Waker to get the Zelda Collectors Edition disc. I subscribed to Nintendo Power to get the Ocarina of Time/Master Quest disc. I preordered some Star Wars game I don’t think I ever played just to get an emulated version of the original arcade Star Wars game on disc.
See a common thread here? Give me games. Exclusive and hard-to-come-by games. Games in physical form (after all, I’ve probably spent more time on those Zelda compilations on the Wii than on my 2 Gamecubes), not some non-transferable download code or whatever that I’ll then have to pirate if I want to play it elsewhere. Don’t sell me child-sized hats or T-shirts. Don’t sell me nostalgic controllers for systems I never owned in the first place. Don’t give me unlock codes I can get on Gamefaqs the next day or patch in using a Game Genie type of program. And I certainly don’t want a Wii Fit sweat towel or whatever. Give me something a pirate can’t get, even if it’s just a silkscreened disc in a case. Give me an updated Mario All-Stars when I preorder Galaxy 2, one that adds SMW/SMW2 and SM64, even if they don’t get graphically updated.
Give me something that shows you’re willing to put time, money and effort into expressing your gratitude to me as a rather lucrative customer.
Till then, I think I’ll continue to pass on registering all the Wii games I buy.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I hope we can get the cool Super Famicom controller here! I might order the Mr. Game & Watch once I have all the coins, I got little over a 100 coins to go for that.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I want the SNES controller. Wavebird is fine for N64 games, but not so much for Super Metroid.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I want either that Zelda statue or the famicon controller. Most of it is crap though. America stuff is bad, but I do like the Punch Out game I earned.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
@raindog: Maybe some people actually want those little trinkets. guaranteed you can’t get ahold of that statue from LoZ, other than Ebay.
I wish that they would get those soundtracks on NA’s Club Nintendo along with the custome hardware.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
i have that zelda statue
is pretty awsome and really big , might sell it one day, for now sitting proudly on my shelf =)
November 5th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
o and the mario galaxy cd is in computer exchange for £40!
November 5th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
I was happy with the game & watch collection. the platinum rewards sucked and so does most of the other crap on the american club nintendo. if N. america is nintendo’s most profitable market then why can’t we have some decent rewards as well. At least we have club nintendo now but i think its time they start offering a little more.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Yeah… I got my mario hat in the mail and I’m extremely disappointed I didn’t get the calender instead. That thing looks pretty sweet, and the hat’s a bit disappointing.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:01 am
“Business cards” are not just for business interactions in Japan. They’re usually traded even for causal interactions. It’s a cultural thing, in part due to the fact that the way you say a person’s name and the way that you write it is rarely obvious at all; there can literally be a few dozen ways to write the same name. So they trade meishi (”name cards”) much more than we would trade business cards.
Basically, putting a Mii on it is less weird than you’d think.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
When I finally have enough points I plan to get the Game & Watch ds cart. I already have the rom, but there’s simply no other choice that I’m remotely interested in in the US club.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Hey, I got the Mario coin and the Elebits doll and the Scribblenauts hat from pre-ordering. But none of those things made me preorder, much less join a club like Nintendo’s.