Topic: Club Nintendo Elite Status Gifts Now Available

[Aaron Brown]

Pick one free downloadable game, please.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/38081/club-nintendo-elite-status-gifts-now-available

The 2014 Elite Status gifts have been revealed on Club Nintendo. Instead of any physical rewards like previous years, choices consist of sixteen different free downloadable titles, with Gold members' options being limited to Virtual Console games.

The following games will be claimable until 11:59 PM PT on August 15, 2014:

Platinum:

Game & Wario
NES Remix
EarthBound
Dr. Luigi
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
Fluidity: Spin Cycle
Dillon's Rolling Western
Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move

Gold/Platinum:

Ice Climber
Kid Icarus
Super Mario Bros.
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Donkey Kong 3
Wario Land 2
Metroid
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

[Shaymin]

Best reward since the Mario family figurine in 2010, in that I will actually play Game and Wario for longer than five minutes. (Not much longer, granted.)

Still, I never use the cards and the soundtrack is for a bad game.

[ejamer]

My expectations were pretty low, but finding no physical reward at all is still disappointing. 

There are only 2 games on the list that I have any interest in and don't already own, with 1 of those 2 already owned on a different platform.  My guess is that quite a few people are in the same position, some probably worse. It's a shame they couldn't have offered something exclusive like the previous Doc Louis's Punch-Out!! mini-game. Heck... they even could have re-offered that exclusive item for anyone who missed it.

Oh well. Gift horse and all that.  Makes me really glad that I didn't pay for NES Remix though. Lesson learned.

[Ceric]

Well, do we still only get to pick one?  Platinum should be able to pick 1 Gold and 1 Platinum at minimum really.

[nickmitch]

I kinda like this reward.  I wanted Game & Wario before the reviews and Fluidity is pretty renown, right?  I've also been wanting to try those Dillon games. . .

Decisions, decisions.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well... If I had made Platinum, I probably woulda got NES Remix.
possibly Earthbound, since I've never played that either.

But truth is, I probably wouldn't play the latter and would atleast give the former a try.

I only got gold this year... wish I had saved most of those last ditch effort points for this year though seeing that the prizes aren't really anything special.

[NWR_insanolord]

I really like having digital rewards like this; still haven't taken some of my previous rewards out of the shipping envelopes they came in. It would be nice if there were more variety, though, with more games to choose from or something like MP3 downloads of sountracks.

[UncleBob]

Wow.  This is super lame.

Hey Nintendo - I ALREADY HAVE ALL OF THOSE TITLES I WANTED.

You know, I've always somewhat defended the Elite awards.  I just can't do it this year.  This is disappointing on a whole new level.

[Ceric]

The big problem with this reward is that all these games are available to purchase.  Which means that if you have Platinum or Gold Status.  There is a very good chance you have every one of those or all the ones you wanted anyway.

It be a whole other thing if it was an early release of about 2-3 games each tier that you can grab for free before the general public.

For these reason's this is lame.

[Triforce Hermit]

The Gold rewards really suck, but getting a retail title as a Platinum rewards are okay. Sucks there is no physical merchandise.

To make everyone happy, they should have just given Platinum members a "get any digital title for free" coupon and Gold members a "get any VC title for free" coupon. Give the coupon a month before expiration, everyone can be happy with what they got because it was what they wanted instead of being forced to choose from a list.

[Evan_B]

Why doesn't Nintendo try to make their club members feel special for investing money in their games? Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is being offered in Japan, a title that was never released in the country. Man, what a reward! But we're getting a bunch of games that people potentially already HAVE? That just doesn't feel like a reward at all.

[TheXenocide]

Gotta say I'm pretty disappointed. I have almost no interest in the ones I don't have. Honestly, I prefer the physical stuff; usually they have a pretty neat collectible. And they could have at least included more than two retail games, and Game and Wario barely counts as that. I'm probably going with Fluidity after hearing Jonny talk about how he liked it. After all, Dr. Metts, you are my spirit animal.

[Adrock]

Why doesn't Nintendo try to make their club members feel special for investing money in their games?

They already do. That's the entire point of Club Nintendo. You're getting free things for buying games you were already going to buy anyway. It boggles my mind that people keep acting like this isn't true. Was it so long ago that we used to buy games and there wasn't a prize attached to it? In fact, that still happens today with every other company that isn't Nintendo. With all the nickle and diming companies pull with DLC and whatnot, it's truly sad that people still can't appreciate a gesture like Club Nintendo. Before Wii, we all bought Nintendo games and were happy to get just that game. Everyone loves a good bargain, but cheese and rice, some of you are impossible to please.

[UncleBob]

Adrock, I have to say, this is the first year I've really whined about the selection of Club Nintendo gifts though.  If you're a big enough Nintendo fan to have legitimately reach Platinum, there's a pretty good chance you own the vast majority of these titles (In fact, I have all of them but one in some form or another.  The one I don't have, Dillon's Rolling Western, I played on a friend's 3DS and I really, really didn't like it).  Sure, free is free and all - but man... Give me the Dinosaur Office or Kirby 3D downloads I didn't win.  Let folks choose from the GBA Ambassador titles they might have missed out on.  Hell, throw up the Wii VC copy of Donkey Kong Original Version that we never got in the states on the VC (and/or the 3DS version that was a limited time offer).  Or, even better, put up Super Mario Bros. Vs. (okay, granted, I complained about stuff I already had, then listed a bunch of stuff I already had... but I'm thinking beyond myself here).

I'm just disappointed that Club Nintendo advertises "exclusive rewards" and there was nothing exclusive about this.

[NWR_insanolord]

They've definitely got exclusive rewards; where else are you going to get plastic boxes to hold your Wii remotes?

[AV]

[size=0.813em]Wario will take up like 80% of the rest of my wii u space, I don't really care about anyting elese but I guess Donkey Kong Returns 3D but I never really liked the games before. Mario vs DK seems ok too but I worry that it will become tedious. Wario would give me some points. ugh the website isn't working so i guess I don't need to decide now.[/size]

[UncleBob]

They've definitely got exclusive rewards; where else are you going to get plastic boxes to hold your Wii remotes?

I have 11 Wii Remotes... I need little plastic boxes to hold them all.

[Adrock]

I suppose for people who can show Nintendo that they own every single one of the reward downloads, it would be nice if Nintendo offered eshop credit. Otherwise, free is free. None of us should have bought all these Nintendo games for the purpose of getting a yearly reward.

Also, isn't offering the GBA Ambassador games to more than the group of people the games were originally intended for the exact opposite point of the Ambassador program? I'm not even talking about people like myself who got the games off a loophole (I wouldn't be upset at all). Anyone who bought a 3DS before the price drop should be like, "Dude, for realsies?"

And if you don't want your Platinum Reward download code, I'll gladly take it off your hands. That goes for anyone who is disappointed in this year's rewards.

[Retro Deckades]

It seems like I'll be continuing my recently instituted trend of downloading remakes when Nintendo offers me a free digital game. I picked up The Wind Waker HD with the Mario Kart 8 free game download, and it looks like I'll be choosing Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D here.

[mustbeburt]

I think this is great!  I hadn't picked up NES Remix yet... I was waiting for it to go on sale or something.  Well, here's the "something"!

[NWR_insanolord]

I suppose for people who can show Nintendo that they own every single one of the reward downloads, it would be nice if Nintendo offered eshop credit. Otherwise, free is free. None of us should have bought all these Nintendo games for the purpose of getting a yearly reward.

Also, isn't offering the GBA Ambassador games to more than the group of people the games were originally intended for the exact opposite point of the Ambassador program? I'm not even talking about people like myself who got the games off a loophole (I wouldn't be upset at all). Anyone who bought a 3DS before the price drop should be like, "Dude, for realsies?"

And if you don't want your Platinum Reward download code, I'll gladly take it off your hands. That goes for anyone who is disappointed in this year's rewards.

It's not just eShop credit because that would cost Nintendo actual money if you spend it on something from a third party. And as someone who foolishly bought a 3DS at launch, I think three years of exclusivity on the GBA games is more than enough, especially if it would result in them doing more of them on the platform.

[UncleBob]

Also, isn't offering the GBA Ambassador games to more than the group of people the games were originally intended for the exact opposite point of the Ambassador program?

A) Ambassadors would still have ten games, while those who picked that reward would only have one.
B) I have never thought (and still to this day am surprised) that the Ambassador GBA games would be *exclusive* to Ambassadors.  I expected (and it was worded as such) that they were just free games for now.  While Nintendo said there were "no plans" to release GBA games on the 3DS eShop, that's a whole world different than saying they're exclusive.

And if you don't want your Platinum Reward download code, I'll gladly take it off your hands. That goes for anyone who is disappointed in this year's rewards.

Nada.  I don't know what triggers it, but giving/selling download codes is against the ToS of Club Nintendo and they've been known to deactivate Club Nintendo accounts that partake in it.  I'm guessing it's more for folks who rip codes out of GameStop copies and sell the Games of the Month on eBay - but not something I'm willing to risk.

[NWR_insanolord]

Nada.  I don't know what triggers it, but giving/selling download codes is against the ToS of Club Nintendo and they've been known to deactivate Club Nintendo accounts that partake in it.  I'm guessing it's more for folks who rip codes out of GameStop copies and sell the Games of the Month on eBay - but not something I'm willing to risk.

I would be extremely surprised if Nintendo's system were sophisticated enough to actually catch this kind of thing, at least on a small scale. That seems like the kind of thing that's mostly there to scare people.

[Adrock]

I was joking about about the download code. I recall an issue a while back with the Fire Emblem Awakening/Shin Megami Tensei special offer that Nintendo was being all weird about. It was something like this girl had two 3DSesses and she bought two of the one game and one of the other and her friend gave her an extra code (since the friend didn't have a Club Nintendo account) and Nintendo brought the hammer down when she tried to redeem the eshop credit. I disagreed with the way Nintendo handled the situation, but I'm still not messing with any of that.

[Triforce Hermit]

Also, isn't offering the GBA Ambassador games to more than the group of people the games were originally intended for the exact opposite point of the Ambassador program? I'm not even talking about people like myself who got the games off a loophole (I wouldn't be upset at all). Anyone who bought a 3DS before the price drop should be like, "Dude, for realsies?"

As someone who bought a 3DS at full price (literally a week before they announced the price drop), I don't care if they were released to the CN members or the general public even. I would prefer they do release them because then they just might release more GBA titles on platform I would actually be happy to see them on.