11.23.05
Nintendo goodies
Being an avid fan of Nintendo, I had to check out what goodies are on offer from their site. I’m trying hard, by the end of this search, not to diss Nintendo Europe for their paltry offers. Sure, US/Canadian citizens will have to travel to NY for exclusive merchandise, but there’s a whole list of online shops from which one can browse and choose from. No wonder whatever gets put on eBay sells for shit loads to fans over here. (And I bet that’s not just the gaming merchandise, though Forbidden Planet does a fairly good selection. Some Ghibli Studio stuff I had the fortune of selling a few years back went for a nice tidy sum – far more than I imagined.)
Obviously, we’ll just have to sit and drool at what’s on offer from the Japanese official site, starting from the top:
1) Original Faceplate (Famicon II Conversion) for GBmicro … at time of writing, this has been cancelled ‘for the time being’.
2) Original 年賀 (nenga: New Year’s Greetings) postcard(s) (~10th Nov.)
3) Nintendo Sound Collection Vol. 3 Luigi*
4) Mario Kart DS pen
5) Wavebird with Club Nintendo motif
6) Original DS pouch “Mario hat version”
7) A4 Clearfile: Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Pokemon
8) DS touchpen in 7 colours
9) DS Card(trans. cartridge) case with Club motif: carry up to 8 cartridges and one pen, made of alminium
10) Wario Controller
11) Animal Crossing Tabletop Calendar (23rd Nov. ~ 31st Jan. ‘06): allows exchange for registering the DS game on site, or ‘pay’ with 200 points
* 3) List of Tracks includes some of the all time favourites from the Mario games and Zelda games.
My, aren’t they all spoilt? And to think that we can only drool… oh, and wait for eBay listings. But seriously, shouldn’t these Japanese companies understand that there are enough fans here too, for it to be worth their money selling merchandise?
frod said,
November 23, 2005 at 7:02 am
The Nintendo stars catalogue in the UK is rubbish 99% of the time, but just occasionally, there is something worth trading up for. I have a Mario branded gamecube controller and an inflatable pokeball. I guess I need to try harder.
yuka said,
November 23, 2005 at 7:34 am
By no means am I trying to diss my lovely Mario controller either. Just that these Japanese companies really need to understand that there is a market out here too, not just in the US and Japan. Think Pocky. How versatile is that? That’s a hit with western customers too. Now if they started selling that over here, at a few more outlets say, they’d be raking in quite a bit.
But it’s the same old scenario with RPGs I guess. They’re just not secure enough to even try.
Felipe said,
November 21, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Hi everyone.
With the launch of the Nintendo Wii just around the corner, will you purchase one?
If so, what are you most looking forward to about the system?