DarkTone | 984 Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 Do you think the ambassador program for the 3DS was worth it? For those that don't know, people who bought a 3DS before the first price drop were compensated with 10 Nes games and 10 game boy advance games. Also, notifications of future games and deals early. From $250 to $170, do you think that was a fair gift? If not, what would you have done differently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Rothchild | 9,520 Editorials Team · Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 It was totally worth it for me because Wal Mart fucked up and price dropped early. So I got the discounted price AND I got ambassador. Suck it Nintendo! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDIRunner | 2,733 Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 (edited) I didn't buy the 3DS until the New 3DS (non-XL) model was released. So yeah, I waited a bit. With that said, depending on the games that were made available, it sounds like a pretty fair deal considering that most early adopters will buy something knowing that there will be eventual price drops. Edited March 30, 2023 by TDIRunner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkTone | 984 Posted March 30, 2023 Author Share Posted March 30, 2023 Good point. The Nes games were: Super Mario Bros. Metroid The Legend of Zelda Zelda II: The Adventure of Link Balloon Fight Ice Climber NES Open Tournament Golf Donkey Kong Jr. Yoshi Wrecking Crew The GBA games were: Metroid Fusion Mario vs. Donkey Kong Mario Kart: Super Circuit Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones Wario Land 4 F-Zero: Maximum Velocity Kirby & the Amazing Mirror Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fox | 1,666 Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 (edited) Naw I just got hosed paying out the nose for the 3ds only for Ninny to roll out a massive price cut just a few months later. They offered some reheated leftovers as a make good but I didn’t spend more than an hour with any of the promotional titles. So to me it wasn’t worth it. Lesson learned don’t ever buy a Nintendo console at launch. Edited March 30, 2023 by fox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,932 Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 Yes and no, but more yes than no. That work for you? Getting no out of the way -- the price of the system was high and it was a band-aid at best to make up for it. The range of stuff there was nice, and originally it amounted to twice as much but then the 8bit stuff (NES) was made for sale anyway which clawed half back. YES - You got (initially) around 20 games for free as an apology. The range scope and genre of the games were largely just fantastic, a few you could question but hey... free(kind of.) And if you figure the $80 price drop was garbage, but if you figure that around $4 a game were given as an apology, and knowing they charged $5-10 per title on the VC of the era that was pretty good. In the end not so good the NES went up for sale, and less good for others they never got GBA going for the masses until the Switch so you have that cool exclusivity of those 10 GBA titles, great GBA titles. And in reflection on how toxic and awful people are with games these days on prices, they're an even bigger savings rounded up into one convenient bundle too. So more a YES than a NO, but there are valid NOPE reasons too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Rothchild | 9,520 Editorials Team · Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said: It was totally worth it for me because Wal Mart fucked up and price dropped early. So I got the discounted price AND I got ambassador. Suck it Nintendo! ...now, pretending that I paid $250 for the system, was it worth $80 for me to get some ROMs? I played through The Legend of Zelda, Wario Land 4, Mario Kart GBA, Kirby Mirror, replayed Metroid Fusion, and parts of Fire Emblem. Did I get $80 worth of play there? Who can say. You could do worse. I've spent $60 on new games and gotten less play before. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorEncore | 3,691 Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 I don't think it really made up for the extra money I spent, but it did give me access to the original NES Metroid in a convenient package which led me to actually beating it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdrunner | 422 Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 I didn't get a 3DS until several years after it came out. I only found out about the ambassador thing through Wikipedia, when I was looking up a list of VC games. I was mostly just annoyed that: The GBA ambassador games were not made available for purchase. I get giving them to certain people for free, but why not keep them on the eShop? No other GBA titles existed, even though the system could clearly handle the platform. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart010 | 1,707 Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 On 3/31/2023 at 7:21 AM, rdrunner said: The GBA ambassador games were not made available for purchase. I get giving them to certain people for free, but why not keep them on the eShop? My guess is that either the system wasn’t powerful enough to optimize GBA games to the level of quality Nintendo would want for the masses (they only made SNES games available to people with the more powerful *NEW* 3DS). Or they kept GBA exclusive to appease the ambassadors and make them feel special so they would maybe feel less upset about paying more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Estil | 1,264 Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us an Envoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RegularGuyGamer | 2,012 Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 On 3/31/2023 at 7:21 AM, rdrunner said: I didn't get a 3DS until several years after it came out. I only found out about the ambassador thing through Wikipedia, when I was looking up a list of VC games. I was mostly just annoyed that: The GBA ambassador games were not made available for purchase. I get giving them to certain people for free, but why not keep them on the eShop? No other GBA titles existed, even though the system could clearly handle the platform. The best thing about the 3DS is it doesn't even emulate GBA games. It plays them natively. Same with GB/C games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart010 | 1,707 Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 39 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said: The best thing about the 3DS is it doesn't even emulate GBA games. It plays them natively. Same with GB/C games. Is that so? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,932 Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 Eh I think that's a bit of a stretch. The chipset has familiar similar architecture but it's not 100% there. From my understanding why the GBA was never done was quite simple, that reason I just said. It's also why you saw some odd choices of games for the titles they did include over others. It almost seems like a total random spray of buckshot to the approach of the freebies. I'm part of a few other communities and it was discussed and dug into years back, but basically the changes in the upgraded ARM chipset did leave behind or changed some ways code is read and interpreted. So those specific games didn't cause glitches and would run natively, other games would have been glitchy to broken, needing an emulator to pull it off and maybe that was just a bit too much work for them to care about when slapping a big fat apology band-aid on to the people who (like me) bought 3DS when it arrived. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RegularGuyGamer | 2,012 Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 (edited) No it's the same. The 3DS has the same chipset as the GBA, it's just layered in other cores. When those other cores aren't active, the GBA core is active and thus runs GBA games natively, no emulator required. "When in 3DS mode, ARM11 runs games, while ARM9 does things like crypto, SD card reads and writes, and WiFi. The ARM7 part of the ARM9 does nothing. In DS mode, the ARM11 does nothing, the ARM9 runs the game, and the ARM7 handles audio and other functions, like it did in the original DS. For this reason, the 3DS had to have an ARM7: to play DS games. In GBA mode, the ARM11 does nothing, the ARM9 does nothing, and the ARM7 runs the game." Edited April 5, 2023 by RegularGuyGamer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange | 1,700 Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 At the time I was pretty stoked and didn’t mind. I think now that I’m an adult out on my own and pay bills etc. I’d be a little more irritated and wouldn’t feel it made up for it. Still, it feels pretty sweet to have a New 3DS with my Ambassador games and certificate transferred onto it. I could see an argument either way and I don’t think either would be wrong. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,932 Posted April 7, 2023 Share Posted April 7, 2023 @Strange That sums up how I basically feel about it a decade ago and still. Eating what 80 dollars for fluff wasn't cool, would have rather had some kind of real compensation even if it was still at a loss, like a voucher for a free 40dollar game from their store (physical) would have been nice. Yet on the other side it's nice having that cert and the GBA stuff always remaining exclusive so it's kind of a trade off. They also in the years since gave other free full games out like DKC Returns for just buying games via points, MK7 too. I don't buy digital but I did get those two because of their system at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koifish | 555 Posted May 9, 2023 Share Posted May 9, 2023 It wasn't worth it, but I did get a lot of playtime out of the two Zelda games and it was where I finally played and beat Zelda 2, so I guess it was okay. 80 was way too much for this when it was basically free for Nintendo to give. They should have given a coupon or something. I swear, Nintendo is always dragging their Famicom stuff out like an old rag and passing it off as a silk robe. I'm not saying I hate NES or Famicom games, in fact I play them a lot still. Just feels like they need to get something else to tantalize fans with already, if you've been in this game a long time then you've had Famicom collections dangled in front of you for two decades now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,932 Posted May 10, 2023 Share Posted May 10, 2023 And at this point I prefer my physical famicom/clone/multi collection than what they're doing too. Worth is just a personal take clearly from the chart up there as it's pretty split in the middle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesRobot | 5,798 Events Team · Posted May 10, 2023 Share Posted May 10, 2023 Not worth it. None of those games were in 3D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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