Club Nintendo isn't the only one giving out free cards.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/29532
There will be "hundreds of AR cards to collect" when Kid Icarus: Uprising releases on March 23, as stated by Nintendo.
In addition to the previously reported Club Nintendo promotion (offering three cards free to users), and six random cards (out of 20) releasing with the physical game, Nintendo has revealed several other outlets to obtain cards from.
Visiting select GameStop locations during special gameplay sessions on April 14 grants players five AR cards, including Eggplant Wizard, Skyscraper Club, Fireworks Cannon, Minos, and the Fiend’s Cauldron. Those who are among the first to purchase the game from Nintendo World in New York will be given the Three Sacred Treasures card.
In addition, magazines @Gamer, Nintendo Power, and Game Informer will be offering special cards in their April issues. Nintendo Power subscribers get a pack of three cards, including Poseidon, Thanatos - God of Death and Medusa (Battle). Game Informer issues will include The Power of Flight, and @Gamer includes Pit, Pandora - The Goddess of Calamity and Samurai Blade.
Furthermore, PAX East, WonderCon, and GameStop sponsored tournaments will be distributing packs of AR Idol cards. European Club Nintendo users can also receive two packs of AR cards (with six random cards each) for 250 Stars. Whether these packs include the bulk of these "hundreds of cards" is unknown.
Are they going to gauge the popularity of the game, then start selling the cards separately if it's a success?Very unlikely. AR Cards are too easy to duplicate to make selling them even remotely viable in today's world. Nintendo is undoubtedly aware of this and is counting on the AR images being traded freely across the Internet. That's probably why they're making so many-- to make impossible to go to any one place to get them all at once. The point behind this is to encourage people to go out in search of the images to scan, it was never about the physical cards. This is nothing new, Nintendo already used this same basic strategy before (albeit, on a much smaller scale) with the AR images for Pokédex 3D.
I'm astounded that some people don't understand the demand for printed physical cards, even though multiple posters here have stated that they enjoy collecting cards, find real value in having physical copies that don't have to be printed out using privately owned equipment, and find NoAs baffling decision NOT to take our money both silly and frustrating.
Just because you like the idea of collecting "virtual cards" (ie: scanned images of actual cards) doesn't mean that other people do. More importantly, it doesn't mean that other people won't willingly and happily pay Nintendo more cash than those cards are actually worth.
Anyway, retort all you want. I'm sure you will. This has all been discussed before ad nauseum in the other thread:
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=37172.0 (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=37172.0)
@Bman87301 Amazon Germany are selling packs of 24 cards seperately, so you sir, are the slow one.
