Now I am a huge supporter of Nintendo's rewards program Club Nintendo as well as gifts given from Nintendo and other game companies to people that pre-order games and content. I always buy Nintendo's consoles at launch for full price and I loyally support Nintendo all the time. So that being said this article may be slightly biased but bear with me.

The Nintendo 3DS went on sale for 250$ I like thousands others bought our 3DS's day one. These customers and those that followed in the coming months spent 80$ more on their consoles than people will in August. Now Nintendo has introduced the Ambassador program to make it up to its loyal consumers and try to mend the relationship. But this got me thinking shouldn't the early adopters always benefit from purchasing their consoles early.

I just read an Iwata interview in which he said Nintendo is worried consumers who are always early adopters may be swayed away and not adopt WiiU at launch. But what if Nintendo awarded early adopters maybe that would make up for the distrust and encourage gamers to adopt early.

Ways Nintendo could do this.

Pre-Order bonus = If you pre-order the WiiU you get a free first party title with the console. This would be a huge bonus and many consumers would jump at the chance to get a free full retail game at launch with their system. I'm not talking WiiSports like game that everyone gets, a game given for free only to those that pre-order. Or maybe if not a game a special gift worth a decent amount. Heck Nintendo could give enough swag that they loose money on every console sold only at launch. Imagine how many benefits they could give. A hoody t-shirts , statues, points cards for the E-shop. Nintendo could give something big to customers who pre-order.

Registration - Nintendo has done this before, you regester a game or system within a certain time frame and you get a gift in the mail. Maybe the first five million WiiU owners get a free ClubNintendo exclusive game like the DS Game&Watch games Nintendo gives for points. Or how about 5-10 VC games. Or maybe 1,000 points on ClubNintendo so you can pick almost any prize you want. Or maybe an E3 demo disk imagine Nintendo giving early adopters a demo disk featuring the E3 demo's only press got to play. Theirs so many gifts.

Or maybe a game purchase reward - Nintendo did this in the GameCube days if you regestered five new GameCube games in an alotted time you got Legend Of Zelda Collection. Nintendo could push new WiiU adopters to buy more software at launch including the hardware. This would help drive profits from hardware and software at the same time.

Or another Ambassador program - People who purchase WiiU in the first six months get put in a special program in which DLC such as VC games and such like 20 VC games are given gradually over the years for free to the early adopters. I bet after consumers get a taste of the Ambassador program on 3DS they would be itching to get it again on WiiU!

Long story short Nintendo really screwed early adopters this time with the 3DS. They say they want to right that wrong and regain early adopters trust. If they always rewarded early adopters in some way they could probably boost numbers. With WiiU I think Nintendo would be really smart to give early adopters something special for loyally purchasing a Nintendo platform at launch.

What do you think, should in the future Nintendo always give some sort of recognition and reward to early adopters?

TL;DR

No, there's no obligation for giving you more since it was your choice to be early adopter.
But, it mostly depends on the timing. Them giving freebies such as this 3DS case is due to early pricecut.

Why? This is the path all early adopters must walk with all consoles, not just Nintendo's.

It is...their destiny.A blessing and a curse. It is the way they have chosen and as such, should not be surprised if they are screwed over.

Actually... it's called preorder bonus.... and yeah a poster of Shiggy in a link costume would be a nice reward for fans ^^

Oh... you do use the words preorder bonus in your wallotext ^^

I actually believe Nintendo has done something very smart with how they handled the price cut of the 3DS ...

When you look at development costs and manufacturing/delivery costs of what Nintendo is giving away to to early adopters, Nintendo is giving away games and there is no real cost associated to it other than the opportunity costs. At the same time, most of the people I know who already bought a 3DS believe that these free games (more or less) fully compensates them for the 3DS price reduction.

If Nintendo can find similar ways to reward people who own their consoles everytime they reduce the price of their system without being too expensive for Nintendo, Nintendo could effectively eliminate people's concern about buying future systems before price cuts. Essentially, if they paired up each price reduction (which should be relatively small from now on) with a handful of free games for the NES and Gameboy virtual console people will get over any "hard-feelings" they have about price cuts from Nintendo platforms.

I was an early adopter of the Snes (and Nes) and it came with a free game. Those people that waited got just the console and a controller at a lower cost. I felt so awesome!

Nintendo in the past has bundled software at launch, this rewarded early adopters. Nintendo also gives pre-order bonus's and gifts for people who pre-order or buy software early. Fact is why should they not do this with hardware it is a much higher priced item and benefits them alot more then software.

Now I myself have always been an early adopter without a prize, however I bet Nintendo could convince alot more people to buy their consoles early if their was a reward in doing so. Especially since Nintendo fears these early adopters won't purchase WiiU at launch, it would make major sense for Nintendo to give these consumers an added incentive to buy one early.

Now I'm not saying early adopters deserve a special gift. I'm saying it would be smart for Nintendo to do everything it can to encourage gamers to buy their consoles at launch. Just like they give special gifts to people who pre-order or regester games within a certain time frame. It just makes sense to do the same with hardware which is far more important to Nintendo then a single game sale!

That is true, cause I know that I'll buy a console if I want it and a reward or bonus will not make/brake my decision.

Early adopters have two purposes in their lives: to adopt early and to be milked for that privilege, so funding the industry and allowing it to reach the first steps in mass production that eventually drives costs down and makes devices affordable to normal people. Rewarding them risks breaking a well oiled and tested mechanism: by no means Ninty should ever reward them again!