Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Nintendo points mystery

What on earth is going on with Nintendo points?

Since the launch of the DSi Wii points have been renamed Nintendo points, as they can be purchased for either the Wii or the DSi. I recently ordered 3000 Wii points cards from Amazon for just £11.20 (which is less VAT), as it would seem that Amazon made a mistake with the pricing, since then, I have noticed a bit of an oddity with the price of Nintendo points both from Nintendo, online stores and also local stores. Incidentally, the Amazon price increased shortly after my order… I wonder if many people took advantage of this particular error.

Previously, Wii points were pretty stable and have been RRP of £15.00 for 2000 points. This means the following:

£1 = 133 points

However, now, the prices for Nintendo points seems to be the following (so far as I’ve noticed)

Buying direct from Nintendo store (Wii or DSi)
£1 = 142 points

In store from HMV or on Amazon (at reduced price).
£1 = 100 points

RRP from Amazon
£1 = 86 points

As such, if Amazon RRP is to believed, the cost of Nintendo points has increased, and yet, based on the Nintendo store cost, it has actually slightly decreased.

This is of course utter madness when you consider that you are just buying money to be spent solely on Nintendo Wiiware/Dsiware!

1 comment:

Sinbad said...

Points systems for buying things are just dumb. Hey, let's create a whole new confusing currency which you can only convert one way!

Kudos to Sony for being the only console manufacturer to price things in real money.

The typical argument about being able to buy points cards for kids etc is total nonsense - shops have been doing vouchers for years without the need to suddenly invent 'HMV Bucks'.

Ever noticed how prices of items often do not match up with a multiple of the points units you can buy? This is a deliberate ploy to make you buy more points than you need for the one thing you want to buy now, hence increasing the chance you'll buy something else later to use them up. Bastards.