AlternatorDelux

Maybe that only happens with physical games.  I definately always get the gold points when I buy digital games older than that.  Either that or they don't actually follow their policy.

That's not true, you can get points for games that are older than a year, but once you have them the points expire a year after that.

Think you could get another shot of the tag that shows the whole logo at the top of it?  I'm curious what it is.

As long as we're on the subject of digging through Nintendo Power catalogs, I'm in search of images of the Summer 97, Fall 97, Winter 98 and Fall 99 catalogs (some of these may not identify the date on the front cover).  I can provide images of the other 20 issues if anyone's after them.

There was also one just like it for Monster Hunter Tri.

Rental stores stopped providing photocopied manuals (or at least most of them did) when Nintendo sued Blockbuster over it in 1989.  I can remember renting exactly one game that included one, Bart vs. the Space Mutants.

I very rarely preorder a game myself, but I'm looking around to see if I discover anything I never knew about.

Even if it's not comprehensive, any specific threads you suggest as a place to start?

Does anyone know if there have been any attempts out there to put together a list of known pre-order bonus items?

If you're listing Nintendo Player's Choice variants, they also have one for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

On 12/26/2020 at 11:56 AM, Jmbarnes101 said:

Does anyone have a list of the official Nintendo Power Strategy Guides? I want to go back to collecting the GameCube era ones. 

They're all accounted for in the guide I made here, including variants like the Player's Choice editions, and others that weren't under the Player's Guide brand like the Super Game Boy and Game Boy Camera guides, and two editions of the Pups book for Nintendogs.  Keep in mind any item that was only included with something else, like the EarthBound guide, only gets mentioned in the description of the product it came with.  Also, some early books like the NES Player's Guide look to be Nintendo-published at first glance, but were actually published by Tokuma Shoten, and aren't included.  I could also post a list here if you'd prefer that.

17 hours ago, LutherDestroysTheGond said:

Speaking of NP guides, I have this Nintendo Power miniguide from Best Buy for Ocarina of Time.  Was this a series of mini guides that NP and Best Buy partnered for?  Or a one off?  I've had this forever and never thought to look for similar guides. 

@acidjaguar @Jmbarnes101

 

That one's new to me, I'm going to try to look into what that was about!  I might be adding it to the doc.

I've added a few items in the above-mentioned categories, namely the Nintendo Power Advance Headphones and two different Banjo-Kazooie soundtracks.  For the next step, I want to add all of the posters and other printed materials such as decals that were obtained through Nintendo Power or its catalog, but were not included in the issues themselves.  I currently don't have access to many of the catalogs between 1994 and 1999.  Is there anyone who can help with that?

This appears to be the answer to that: https://nintendotimes.com/1990/11/01/subscribe-to-nintendo-power-get-a-free-dragon-warrior-game-pak/

Does anyone know how exactly Nintendo Power made this offer?  Was it mailed to people directly?  I know it was in late 1990, but as far as I can tell, it wasn't mentioned in subscription offers within the magazine itself.

A few missing items have been added after confirming that they're Nintendo-produced.  Namely, the Pokémon Emerald tin and soundtracks for both Twilight Princess and Twilight Princess HD.  These are all in the (1) pre-order bonus or (2) Nintendo Power subscription bonus categories; there's a chance there are more items in those categories where Nintendo can be confirmed as the publisher, so I'd appreciate any information on those from experts on the subject.  And if anyone knows of a thorough guide to either of those categories already out there, that would be great.

If you have specific examples to share, just remember that the producers of these categories of items are usually third-party, and typically can only be confirmed to be first-party if they're in the form of certain types of media. (In the Emerald tin's case, the printed materials it contains are conclusive enough).  If you're not sure what I mean, I'd be glad to get more specific about why over any suggested items.

I just did a more thorough search through archived sites during the time frame when a no-cable release before Player's Choice could have existed.  I came up completely empty, with no sign of any retailers offering it or any news/forum posts mentioning it, nor could I find mention of there being a price drop that might hint at this option being introduced.  (This is one of the methods I used to help build my NOA list; it's the type of item I would need to add if I discovered it.)  Short of a print retailer advertisement popping up, I'm ready to conclude now that this is not a release that happened.

Here's some more details in case they're useful.

From firsthand experience buying the game near launch, I'm certain at that time there was only a big box version, and it was priced at $50.  All GameCube Player's Choice releases were priced at either $20 or $30.  It seems pretty unlikely to me there would be an intermediate small box release in between those dates and prices, but I can't rule it out.

While the big and small boxes have different SKUs, I can directly confirm that the SKU of the small box does not match that of the big box it was inside of, so that doesn't indicate there was a seperate release either.

22 hours ago, joshdose said:

There was never a “Not For Resale” case for this game. You won’t find one.

On second look, that's true.  I mixed this game up with DDR: Mario Mix, which has a similar situation.  I wonder why one game got that label and the other didn't?

Agreed that it was big box only unless it's Player's Choice.  If you find a version of the small box that doesn't say Not for Resale on the back, I would change my answer.

On request, I'm posting my chronological list of Nintendo of America releases here.  While there are certain categories of items it doesn't cover, I see it as comprehensive based on my own goals for it.  The FAQ lays out the criteria for what things are included.

https://www.keepandshare.com/doc8/22871/chronicle-pdf-407k?dn=y&dnad=y

How mysterious.  Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary Pin Set #1 was renamed to Super Mario Bros. Collectible Pin Set before it was released.  Either they've abandoned plans for a second set or it was an accident that they were hinting at one too early.

I added the sneaky My Nintendo rewards from last week, and specified for each card pack whether it's random or a fixed set, along with the number of cards.

Yeah, I couldn't have done this if I didn't have an extreme level of familiarity with the company, as otherwise I'd never even know what many of the things I should be looking for are.

A year ago, I started putting together a chronological list of NOA products just for fun, to see what I'd learn.  I ended up diving deep enough that the result was a list I believe to be more thorough than can be found in any one place.  I recently polished it up into a more convenient format, and I'm sure there are some here that could make use of it, so I'll post a link.

This information shouldn't be taken as absolutely definitive, and I'm always adjusting things when I learn more.  I regret not keeping track of specific sources along the way; I used everything from ancient forum posts to newspaper ads to narrow down release dates, along with my own memory of when items were available or advertised.  I did use a color-coding system to reflect my level of certainty for each date.

If anyone thinks there's a better way to do this, or to do the same thing for other companies/regions, you're free to use it as a base and take it in your own direction as long as you link back to it.  I appreicate any information you can give me to add, but be sure to read the FAQ first; if something is missing, there's a good chance there's a reason for it.  Here's a link that will stay updated:

https://www.keepandshare.com/doc8/22871/chronicle-pdf-407k?dn=y&dnad=y