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***Register Super Mario 3D World Now! Wave 2 Pin Set Incoming 17 Feb at 3PM EST*** Super Mario 35th Anniversary - Complete Nintendo Missions to (Maybe) Earn Rewards


DoctorEncore

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I also was able to snag these yesterday after 2.5 hours of trying to get through the process.  Claimed the code at 3 pm the eastern, saw it was a cluster F, and came back to my computer at 5:30 and got through the ordering process within 5 minutes or so.  But yes, these should have been pre-order bonuses instead of this crap shoot.

Supposedly, there is a pin set #2 coming out as well too.  Probably more shenanigans with that set as well.

 

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36 minutes ago, Sumer said:

Not terribly formal, but there is a pic from the website Attack of the Fanboy that has an image supposedly from Nintendo:

3B7F3B88-6432-4879-AF2A-25A8E1C1D20C.jpeg

I remembered seeing this image. Also the pin set that we are getting is called pin set #1 and it only includes the first 5 pins..

So it would seem that there will be a pin set #2 that contains the latter 5 pins

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Ha! Now when I go to the website, it won't give me my code anymore and it says the pin is no longer available. It is still in my cart, but it won't let me check out since it just keeps rejecting my credit card. Glad I started trying 20 minutes before the official time!

This is the most Nintendo thing ever.

Edited by DoctorEncore
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Good ol' Nintendo...always biting the hands that feed them. I don't care that much about some pins that will sit in a drawer but these kinds of shady practices are getting out of hand. Nintendo makes great games, but their business sense comes off as manipulative and greedy sometimes. And here I thought they were one of the good ones. Gotta love when they say something like "redeem your points by March 31 to get this set" when it's really "redeem within 5 min of the redemption period (which we won't tell you when it will be) going live"

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11 hours ago, fox said:

WTF are you even going to do with these things?  

Originally I was gonna sell them off and buy myself a few beers; now it looks like I can get a Switch game or two!

That's unreal and I'll add to the chorus of not seeing these things holding a $100+ price point for very long.

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1 hour ago, AstralSoul said:

Good ol' Nintendo...always biting the hands that feed them. I don't care that much about some pins that will sit in a drawer but these kinds of shady practices are getting out of hand. Nintendo makes great games, but their business sense comes off as manipulative and greedy sometimes. And here I thought they were one of the good ones. Gotta love when they say something like "redeem your points by March 31 to get this set" when it's really "redeem within 5 min of the redemption period (which we won't tell you when it will be) going live"

I think they are, they are just extremely naive about how people view their products.  I recall reading an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime regarding the Nintendo Classic.  I seem to recall he gave the general impression that they honestly thought it would be a "boutique" item, was intended to be a sort of thank you to the super fans and they didn't expect it to do well.

Well, once again they waaaaaaay underestimated what fans can want.  I really don't believe they were looking to cheat their fans.  They probably thought it'd be a "nice little promotion", it wouldn't get a lot of attention, other than maybe 30-50% on an email subscription and that it would come and go.  But, no.  Once again the fans came along and instead of it being casual, they completed the tasks and got the pins in under 30 minutes.

All they have to do is have some intern in marketing keep his pulse on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and maybe one or two other social places and just have them keep a pulse on what's hot and what everyone wants. I'm not saying he needs to be giving advice, but a young kid like that who's highly motivated can give them a lot of valuable "street knowledge" of what people are saying, doing, loving.

EDIT

Sorry about that photo.  Not sure where it came from.

Edited by RH
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8 minutes ago, RH said:

I think they are, they are just extremely naive about how people view their products.  I recall reading an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime regarding the Nintendo Classic.  I seem to recall he gave the general impression that they honestly thought it would be a "boutique" item, was intended to be a sort of thank you to the super fans and they didn't expect it to do well.

Well, once again they waaaaaaay underestimated what fans can want.  I really don't believe they were looking to cheat their fans.  They probably thought it'd be a "nice little promotion", it wouldn't get a lot of attention, other than maybe 30-50% on an email subscription and that it would come and go.  But, no.  Once again the fans came along and instead of it being casual, they completed the tasks and got the pins in under 30 minutes.

All they have to do is have some intern in marketing keep his pulse on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and maybe one or two other social places and just have them keep a pulse on what's hot and what everyone wants. I'm not saying he needs to be giving advice, but a young kid like that who's highly motivated can give them a lot of valuable "street knowledge" of what people are saying, doing, loving.

image.png

The thing is, it's hard to know whether Nintendo is just ignorant and doesn't do their research based on the demand of the fans, or if they're trying to create more demand by limiting supply and encouraging scalping. I can't help but feel they're on the path to making their products more "exclusive" by limiting supply which increases demand. Even something as simple as a pin set, which should be no problem for anyone to get, is somehow a problem. And people are reselling this "free" bonus item for profit. Nintendo may not directly be encouraging this practice but it doesn't look good on them either because they're certainly not appeasing the fans this way. And the pin set is just one very tiny example of a much much bigger problem.

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43 minutes ago, AstralSoul said:

The thing is, it's hard to know whether Nintendo is just ignorant and doesn't do their research based on the demand of the fans, or if they're trying to create more demand by limiting supply and encouraging scalping. I can't help but feel they're on the path to making their products more "exclusive" by limiting supply which increases demand. Even something as simple as a pin set, which should be no problem for anyone to get, is somehow a problem. And people are reselling this "free" bonus item for profit. Nintendo may not directly be encouraging this practice but it doesn't look good on them either because they're certainly not appeasing the fans this way. And the pin set is just one very tiny example of a much much bigger problem.

This is a common belief and it goes all the way back to the Super Nintendo and maybe even the NES.  However, after spending many years in manufacturing and observing various quotes Nintendo has made from some of their investor reports, I think they are an extremely business-conservative company and that always affects the customer by limiting supply.

One of the big reasons why at least hardware is limited for almost every single release is because you have a limited amount of equipment, like a console, you can manufacture when you create a production line.  If you create three production lines for your console, assuming initially they will be running 24/5, then that's all the consoles you can make when they are running at 100%.  However, there is a lot of cost involved in setting up a fourth manufacturing line and Nintendo has never ramped up production in that kind of manner, regardless of pent up demand.

What this means is that when something like the Wii is released, it sells like gangbusters to everyone including Grandma, Nintendo has to ask themselves if they should build new production lines to meet extreme demand.  Nintendo never does because they don't want to take the chance that if they build the line, sixth months later the demand may die, and they now have a sunken cost of investing millions of dollars into an unneeded production plant.  This conservativism runs deep in some Japanese businesses and we see this with Nintendo. I am certain that Nintendo Corporate in Japan has absolutely no clue what the fan base of America is like.  I'm not saying they don't care about us, but they don't do any research on the dynamics and I doubt they have any inkling of how important their IP is to the American cultural zeitgeist.  Because of that, they under estimate demand far too frequently on most of their products.

I think NOA would care of about these details, but my assumption is they don't care as much as they could since their leadership doesn't care or direct them to research it. I do blame Nintendo for this, but I just blame the fact that they are too scared to lose money on any product and when they aren't willing to take such risks, the supply side takes the hit, which means we will have to wait for Wiis, Switches, miss out on special editions and... *sigh* not get the pins we earned because we didn't check for them within 5 minutes of their release time.

Edited by RH
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  • The title was changed to ***Wave 1 Closed*** Super Mario 35th Anniversary - Complete Nintendo Missions to (Maybe) Earn an SMB Collectible Pin Set
  • The title was changed to ***Wave 1 Open Again??? My Code is Back and I Can Checkout!!!*** Super Mario 35th Anniversary - Complete Nintendo Missions to (Maybe) Earn an SMB Collectible Pin Set

I have had the pin set sitting in my cart since Monday, but was having my credit card repeatedly rejected when I tried to checkout. Since then, when I checked the Rewards/Missions page, my code had disappeared and it said the pins were no longer available.

HOWEVER, I went back again last night and the pin set was still in my cart and I was miraculously able to checkout. Furthermore, when I go to the Rewards/Mission page today, my code is showing again. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up who didn't already get a code, but I would recommend people check it out and see if it is back. 🤞

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  • The title was changed to ***Wave 1 Still Closed, But Checkout May Be Working For Those With Credit Card Errors*** Super Mario 35th Anniversary - Complete Nintendo Missions to (Maybe) Earn an SMB Collectible Pin Set

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