New Details on Nintendo's Deluxe Digital Promotion

UPDATE: Sorry, Deluxe Set is $349, not $399.

--

Even if 32GB isn’t that much and a black Wii U might not match your living room setup, Nintendo is producing a solid incentive to pick up the Wii U Deluxe Set with its digital promotion bonuses.

Anyone who purchases the $349 Wii U Deluxe Set becomes part of a two-year (November 18, 2012 through December 31, 2014) promotion that will give consumers money back for making digital purchases. For every 500 points earned through purchases, you get $5 back. Pick up New Super Mario Bros. U for $59.99, for example, and you’ll have earned 599 points, enough to get $5 back.

You will not be able to participate with a vanilla Wii U Basic Set, nor will you accrue points with purchases made on the 3DS eShop. The latter is bothersome, though one assumes (hopes?) Nintendo will come up with a way to unify the platforms, and allow Wii U Basic Set owners to purchase their way into the digital benefits program. Nintendo has not made any comments on this possibility yet, and the company confirmed the inability for Wii U Baset Set owners to opt-in when I asked today.

Weirdly, however, redemption points earned through Wii U eShop purchases can be used to buy games on the 3DS eShop. That's good but weird, I guess? A website is launching in December to help users manage their accounts.

UPDATE: Sorry, Deluxe Set is $349, not $399.

--

Even if 32GB isn’t that much and a black Wii U might not match your living room setup, Nintendo is producing a solid incentive to pick up the Wii U Deluxe Set with its digital promotion bonuses.

Anyone who purchases the $349 Wii U Deluxe Set becomes part of a two-year (November 18, 2012 through December 31, 2014) promotion that will give consumers money back for making digital purchases. For every 500 points earned through purchases, you get $5 back. Pick up New Super Mario Bros. U for $59.99, for example, and you’ll have earned 599 points, enough to get $5 back.

You will not be able to participate with a vanilla Wii U Basic Set, nor will you accrue points with purchases made on the 3DS eShop. The latter is bothersome, though one assumes (hopes?) Nintendo will come up with a way to unify the platforms, and allow Wii U Basic Set owners to purchase their way into the digital benefits program. Nintendo has not made any comments on this possibility yet, and the company confirmed the inability for Wii U Baset Set owners to opt-in when I asked today.

Weirdly, however, redemption points earned through Wii U eShop purchases can be used to buy games on the 3DS eShop. That's good but weird, I guess? A website is launching in December to help users manage their accounts.

Well that is pretty great but does every full game have the same amount of points or does NSMBU just have more because its a Nintendo game?

Thats cool I guess.

$399? I thought it was $349?

Yeah, I'll just get the basic and use an sd card for extra space.

It's good to see console owners incentivizing digital purchases. Gives me hope for an all-digital future.

@yoshimitz707: It is.

@yoshimitz707 said:

$399? I thought it was $349?

It is. @patrickklepek you goofed on the price...

Come on Pat, the price of the Wii U Deluxe Set is even in the image you use in this very article. How do you get the price wrong in the text?

32 gigs ?  lol 

This is a terrific idea. A great way for Nintendo to get the attention of the "hardcore" crowd that had no reason to care about the WiiU. I wouldn't expect Microsoft to follow this example unless they start to feel the WiiU taking sales away from them. Maybe something Sony plays with though and puts pressure on Microsoft to follow.

holla holla get 399 dolla
 
or not

@Taku128 said:

Come on Pat, the price of the Wii U Deluxe Set is even in the image you use in this very article. How do you get the price wrong in the text?

He probably writes his articles in word, or a mac equivelint. And adds the pictures from the press kits they get, or links from the wiki.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?

- Brad Pitt

Weird that you can't do it with a regular edition. Like I would understand if you just paid an annual fee to use the service on the regular edition where you just get 2 years free with the Deluxe. I guess you need that extra 16 GB to hold all those eshop games you'll be getting.

Cool, I guess.

@Philantrophy: Glad I'm not the only one reading it in his voice.

@Philantrophy said:

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?

- Brad Pitt

They just need an awkward picture in the corner of Gweneth Paltrow smiling, holding a WiiU Gamepad....

It's weird that 3DS purchases wouldn't count towards your point total. There should be some unified profile you can use to link both systems. If that was the case, I would seriously consider getting the WiiU. I mean it's essentially buy a full retail game and get an eShop game for Free.

puke

Hope that makes all of the shovelware they'll sell a little more worth it...

I hope they do combine the two stores so i can play my SNES games on my 3DS and my GBC games on my WiiU, love cross platform madness.

This seems like a scheme to placate brick & mortar. The cost of the game is still $59.95...but we have our own program to cut off $5 for our online customers. Yet, any scheme like this could be fragile because it serves to masters.

I would be less concerned about price and more concerned with ease of use and how extensive the library will become. The games could be dirt cheap, but if there is no selection of date & date sales online its not as good of a system as it could be.

@Philantrophy:

See picture. WHAT'S IN THE BOX? ctrl+f. "What's in th" OH GODDAMMIT.

It's really strange that it's a set two-year window, and not two years from the date of purchase.

If things are marketed and priced correctly, you don't need these stupid promotional gimmicks

For every 500 points earned through purchases, you get $5 back. Pick up New Super Mario Bros. U for $59.99, for example, and you’ll have earned 599 points, enough to get $5 back.

Am I missing something here? If I get $5 for every 500 points, why am I also getting $5 for every 599? Even if you can only redeem $5 when you reach a multiple of 500 (which isn't specified here), would the remaining 99 still count in the future?

@thebunnyhunter: the points you get depend on how much you spend

@GrantHeaslip: Ya, there's definitely no way that you have to spend fifty bucks each time in order to be incentivised. To my understanding, each dollar you spend earn's you one point and when you hit 500 points, you'll get that $5 dollars off your next purchase. Patrick just used that as an example to say "hey, buy this and you'll get that". The 99 extra points should then roll over on your way to getting 5 bucks off again. If all of that isn't true, then this system is pretty silly.

@GrantHeaslip: Every 100 points nets you $1 of credit, and they don't round up (so 99 points doesn't equal another dollar of credit). The remaining 99 points will carry over until it you spend enough to make it 100.

$399? I thought it was $349?

This makes Friends Codes seem logical. I have no idea what the actual deal is.

You convert 500 Microsoft Points to legal tender, talk to people in Asia about investing in Nintendo sweatshops and then you get five dollars.

@Philantrophy said:

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?

- Brad Pitt

I was thinking the same thing when I read that.

Just look at this picture. It explains everything clear as day. The news post makes everything sound totally weird.

By the way, this promotion was already announced during the September 13 event/Nintendo Directathon.

http://ddp.nintendo.com

@Tarsier said:

puke

what a useful comment.

@shatov said:

Hope that makes all of the shovelware they'll sell a little more worth it...

oh come on, seriously? ...

@FreedomTown said:

If things are marketed and priced correctly, you don't need these stupid promotional gimmicks

dude, you're saving money. stop fishing for things to complain about.

I like these sorts of new ideas and customer rewards, but Nintendo still has a long way to go to provide as compelling of a digital marketplace as Microsoft or Sony do.

im glad you enjoy your nintendo "products"

@honkyjesus said:

This makes Friends Codes seem logical. I have no idea what the actual deal is.

You convert 500 Microsoft Points to legal tender, talk to people in Asia about investing in Nintendo sweatshops and then you get five dollars.

Everything you spend on the eShop, you get 10% back to use on future purchases.

I always thought achievement points could be used as a way of currency.

@FreedomTown said:

If things are marketed and priced correctly, you don't need these stupid promotional gimmicks

The Wii U is being sold at a loss, actually. So technically a "correct price" would be more expensive, not less.

I don't think that the Wii U has what it needs to compete with the current consoles, especially with the next gen console announcements right around the corner.

Yes let's keep pointing out and complaining about the hard drive space. I am upset the Wii U doesn't have 250gb hard drive and costs $100 dollars more because of it. If only there was a way to use our own external hard drives for the Wii U which would be cheaper for consumers...

:rollseyes:

Seems like an awesome deal to make all that online registering worth it. 

@Katkillad: If you're paying $100 for a 250GB HDD you're getting ripped off big time. 32gb is tiny and asking for a little more inside the machine is not demanding at all. The WiiU discs themselves have 25gb of storage ffs. It's dumb.

That's way better than the rewards Microsoft gives us on Live, so I'll take it. If I bought a Wii U that is. Because I'm probably still not getting one this year.

Patrick made a simple typo in the article, making the deluxe out to be 50 dollars more than it actually is. Honest mistake, or dastardly scheme to destroy Nintendo? You decide.

He really oughta fix that, though.

@thebunnyhunter: The full details can be found here: http://ddp.nintendo.com/. I don't know why @patrickklepek didn't post a link :\

@Hef said:

@Katkillad: If you're paying $100 for a 250GB HDD you're getting ripped off big time. 32gb is tiny and asking for a little more inside the machine is not demanding at all. The WiiU discs themselves have 25gb of storage ffs. It's dumb.

The thing is that it's flash storage, not a hard drive. I assume they did that for size, reliability, and maybe cost savings (since they probably use flash storage for the system stuff anyway). Whether or not there should also have been a hard drive there is another matter -- I think asking people to plug in an external drive is a lame solution -- but you're sort of comparing apples and oranges.

Anyone know if this goes for the UK Zombie u Deluxe package? The one that comes with the pro controller?

Sweet!

I'll only have to spend 400 dollars on a console, and 50$ on a game to get FIVE DOLLARS FOR FREE? well sign me up!