Nintendo recently announced a global price-cut on the 3DS, and it was confirmed that from 12 August the handheld console will retail locally for R1,899. While this is great news for people who still plan to buy a 3DS, it’s a little less fantastic for anyone who has already bought the just-launched console. To make it up to disgruntled 3DS owners, Nintendo is giving away 20 free downloadable games, and today local distributor Core has confirmed that this offer is available to South Africans.<\/p>\n
“There have been times in the past when we, Nintendo, have marked down the trade prices for our video game machines a certain amount of time after launch to further accelerate adoption of the hardware, but never in Nintendo’s history have we dropped a system’s trade price so significantly less than 6 months after launch,” states Nintendo SA via Core. “We are aware this may cause you, the loyal fans who supported Nintendo 3DS from the beginning, to lose trust in us, and this is not our intention in any way.”<\/p>\n
“All of you who have kindly supported Nintendo 3DS from the beginning are Nintendo’s most important customers. Although we may not be able to completely prevent you from regretting purchasing Nintendo 3DS early, we would like to express our gratitude to our special customers like you by offering 20 free downloadable games.”<\/p>\n
“These free games are available to anyone who owns a Nintendo 3DS system in South Africa. To qualify for these free games you need to perform two simple system updates. The first system update which must be performed before 23:59pm (Central European Time) on August 11th makes you eligible for the programme and the second system update, which you need to conduct later in the year, will enable you to download the 20 free titles. “<\/p>\n
“In order to perform the system update you need to Open the System Settings from the HOME Menu, Select OTHER SETTINGS, Scroll to the right and select SYSTEM UPDATE. Please note that a wireless Internet connection is required in order to update.”<\/p>\n
“If you perform these two system updates then later in the year you will be able to download 10 NES Virtual Console games at no charge including Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, and The Legend of Zelda. In addition you will be able to download for free 10 Game Boy Advance Virtual Console games. These include games like Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania and Mario vs. Donkey Kong.”<\/p>\n
Nintendo has promised to announce more details about the program in the future.<\/p>\n