Wherein Kitsune Begs People For Useless Stuff

[Kitsune]

The current Club Nintendo season is coming to an end in a week, and for the first time since it came to the US, I haven't gotten enough Nintendo crap to be in the platinum tier where they send out something nifty but mostly useless like a Mario hat.  The 3DS probably would've given me enough points for this year, but it came out with no battery life so I put off buying it until the next version.  I'm a sucker for nifty useless crap, so I turn to y'all for anyone who has Wii or DS games but doesn't give enough of a fuck to register them, so I can completely cheat the spirit of the system.  The registration cards in games are little leaflets in with the manual, and look like thus:



Third party games often don't have these cards with them, though some do.  I've never been able to determine much rhyme or reason to which publishers have registration cards.  Anyone who can PM the little code on their cards to me will get absolutely nothing in return, but I'm sure there's some sort of karmic reward for helping me con Nintendo out of whatever they're giving people this year.

[MisterNoisy]

PM'd you a handful, including the CN code from my 3DS.  Hope those help.  :)  Post pics of your loot!

[Kitsune]

I was still 20 points short.   

Then I remembered that they were offering 20 points for installing Netflix on the Wii.   

So thanks lots, MisterNoisy, I'll be sure to update with whatever swag they send this year!

[Yegolev]

I'm irritated that now the points expire, and they only give you credit for one of each type of console.  That second GameCube did me no good at Club Nintendo.

My last acquisition was the hanafuda deck.  Swank.

[Kitsune]

They said from the get-go that the points would expire.  The expiration time on them is so long that we're only now reaching the point where the earliest points are reaching their expiration.  I turned in almost all of my expiring first-year points and got the messenger bag, which isn't a bad little thing for having sent them no money whatsoever.  Plus the mario hat from the first year and the statue of the mario cast from the second year as the platinum rewards, the Zelda gamecube collection, Nintendo's been pretty generous in the free stuff they've sent me over the years for being a customer.  More than I've ever gotten from Sony!

At least, until Sony lost my personal data to hackers, then they coughed up some free stuff.  Thanks guys.

[Yegolev]

I suppose I must have missed out on the expiration?  Has it always been the case that you have to gain X points within a timeframe in order to get Platinum?  Maybe I never noticed that either but I realized I wasn't going to be able to get Plat before June unless I bought a lot of things.

[Kitsune]

The way it works is that Nintendo's year is July to July.  Any points you get in that timeframe count towards being gold or platinum level for that year, and any free swag that goes with.  300 points gets you gold, 600 gets platinum.  Points expire in July if they're over two years old at that point, so any points gained between July 2008 and July 2009 are expiring this week.  Everything newer than that is fine until July 2012, when the 2009-2010 points will expire.

The upshot is that points have 2-3 years before they expire, depending on how late in the cycle you got them.  If you don't have enough stuff to get the points to reach a reward level by the end of June, you're better off just saving them and registering in July so they'll count for the next year's rewards.

[Yegolev]

Yep, so I'm looking at buying some stuff.  I don't really want a 3DS, though.

[Kitsune]

Huh, interesting.  This year's useless reward is 25 pixel art pins from the original Super Mario Bros.



Which is neither big nor expensive, but fairly neat and easy to wear around.  The previous rewards were both more impressive, but mostly end up gathering dust on shelves; this could be more useful.

[Pennilenko]

Nothing useless about that reward. Those pins are bad ass.

[Kitsune]

Just useless in being a decorative novelty.  I agree that they do in fact rule.

[MisterNoisy]

Huh, interesting.  This year's useless reward is 25 pixel art pins from the original Super Mario Bros.

(snip)

Which is neither big nor expensive, but fairly neat and easy to wear around.  The previous rewards were both more impressive, but mostly end up gathering dust on shelves; this could be more useful.

Very nifty schwag.  :)