I'm at platinum status with 930 points

Great, now I don't feel special anymore :(

I don't have a problem with it taking a while to fulfill the orders.

But they've known when the year ends since they've started the program.

There's no reason to not be ready to announce what the prizes are now regardless of when they can fulfill them.

Afterall, we have to make our "orders" before they can even begin the process of shipping.

I got the email.

Gah I want to know what it is they are sending NOW! *pouts and stomps foot*

I imagine they wanted to see how many people would get platinum before choosing the prizes. If only a (relative) handful of people got platinum, a special Wiimote might be in order. If everyone and their mum made it up to 600 points, it's time to break out the replica mario hats.

exactly what I was implying. Nintendo is a smart company, and there is a good chance they have a set budget for club nintendo. The less people that reach gold/platinum, the more money they would have to spend on a prize. Who knows, I could be wrong and maybe they had the prizes picked out months ago, but we don't know.

I think it's much more likely that they have had the prizes picked out for awhile.

1) They had to have forecasts before even starting the program.

2) They've had running totals the entire time. There might be a small spike at the end for someone achieving the next level, but they could have easily looked at say "all 200s as potential gold" to see if those numbers fit in with their estimates.

3) They aren't going to stray too far from their original idea (if they are a smart company) simply because then the reward program becomes a dissatisfier. Hand out crap compared to what they have been getting in Japan, piss off your loyal customers. Give away bricks of gold and there are expectations that you will do it again this year.

Of course my expectations of something good (wii wheel, SNES controller) are tempered by the fact that there is still sh*t on the site that I, as a Wii owner, can trade my coins in for. So if that is a judge of the rest of the program, it means that the N.A. Club program is someone's red headed stepchild and a C priority that no one wants to bother with. So we'll probably all get Mario back tattoo stickers.