
If you're thinking about picking up Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl this week in preparation for their launch this Friday, you might want to consider grabbing them from My Nintendo Store UK.
Nintendo's official store is offering a special promotion where any pre-orders for the two games and other related products will automatically enter you into a competition to win some glorious Poké Ball replicas. Ordering either Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl (or any bundle in which they feature), or any previous pre-orders of those or the Nintendo Switch Lite Pokémon Dialga & Palkia Edition, will qualify you for the draw.
All physical items are out of stock now, but you can pre-order the digital versions of either game below (just toggle the option when you land on Nintendo's site) and still be entered:
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
Here's a closer look at the three Poké Ball replicas you could win. Five lucky winners will win a set of the three replicas below each – they can also be purchased separately if you'd rather just buy one.
Full terms and conditions can be found here; you have until 11:59pm on Thursday 18th to get your pre-order in. Other alternatives, including pre-order options for those of you in the US, can be found here.
Comments 18
I already have cheap price of Pokeball and Great Ball bought from my local store. 😁
Can u order in UK store from other parts of Europe? i want real poke balls not replicas
@Gerald maybe they are ultra balls
Interested to know why they are £100.
@Gerald They're metal, the ball has an interactive light (you can press the button to see if you "caught" or "missed" the pokemon you threw it at, it mimicks the look of the ball in the anime), and the base has lights that illuminate the ball as well, and you can change the color of those lights. The ball feels really nice in your hand, it's weighty. Was it worth $100? ...eh, probably more like $60. But it's still cool.
That's pretty nice I guess, since I decided to pre-order the double pack from there for the bonus items, particularly the SteelBook.
I got an email notification recently that the pin badges would be delayed though, but at least it's not the actual games being delayed.
@Anti-Matter "Filet mignon from a fancy restaurant? No thanks, I have a leftover hot dog in the fridge at home."
i've pre-ordered from smyths since i can get the games for about £42.50, not much of a discount but still every little helps
Papering over the cracks of a lacklustre game by introducing this incentive to encourage preorders.
I cancelled mines last week.
10 years ago, games would include exclusive in-game content like a costume or special weapon for those that chose to pre-order their game.
In 2021, a pre-order's incentive is a lottery ticket for a chance to win an overpriced fidget toy. It feels like we're going backwards.
@Astral-Grain
This isn't unusual for Nintendo UK Store.
They'll announce and open pre-orders weeks or months ahead of the game's launch.
Closer to launch, they'll sweeten the deal with pre-order goodies, sometimes stuff like mugs or posters, sticker sets, key chains, pin badges, SteelBooks, etc.
And even closer to launch they might have prize raffles, they've done that for a few games they have particularly pricey items for sale, it's a way to promote the sale of those items you might've not known about otherwise.
Only UK?
Once again, us North Americans are getting left out.
It's so weird that Nintendo isn't really thinking about doing these rewards in the US as well. I've kind of simplified it down: Japan is their primary audience. Then, they've got us North Americans and Australians. Europe comes in third. Great to show them a little love, but it's so weird
That's probably me acting spoiled though
Wins "I finally got my own poke ball, Now go Pikachu!" Glass Breaking
Well Shoot.
Feels like if you order it digitally they wont bother sending you gift by itself
@Astral-Grain And ten years ago people were complaining about that too. It's always something. No one's happy. Everybody was complaining about retail chain exclusive pre-order bonuses, pre-order bonuses in general that people got left out of who bought it on the street date. I've seen them all come and go. I also remember, before even THAT, that pre-ordering should include some sort of bonus or incentive and people were complaining how it's boring and pointless. We come full circle probably every decade on that subject.
@ivory_soul You make an excellent point, we (myself included) will always complain when we have something better to compare it to. I think video game pre-orders worked well in the PS360 era because games releasing unfinished wasn't as common, and the little in-game rewards were a way for them to tempt people into giving their money up before release, which is always desirable for a company.
I think since unfinished games being released is much more common now, people are less inclined to pre-order, and the incentive would have to be more significant because of the implied risk of buying something you hate playing.
It's even more confusing when some games claim they will release "free updates" when the initial game version they released wasn't even up to snuff compared to previous entries (Animal Crossing). While there are good examples of this, games that released as full games and then got free content later (Stardew Valley, Minecraft), it's becoming more and more difficult to tell apart which ones are full games on release and which ones are fledgling games that will hopefully become full content over months of "free updates." It's risky times to pre-order.
@Astral-Grain Good points. I only pre-order when I know it's a well-established and trusted developer or franchise such as Mortal Kombat. I've pre-ordered every single game in the series since Deception and haven't been disappointed. Sure, the microtransaction thing was a little iffy with MK11, but they did fix it in the end. At least it was a full completed game. I only pre-order indie titles that have had tons of coverage or had Early Access coverage that was well received.
For example, Forza Horizon is a safe series to pre-order. They knock it out of the park sequel after sequel and it's usually, mostly, minor issues that get fixed in a few weeks. Other safe examples are Nintendo and Sony franchises.
I hope that this trend of unfinished games being released will end soon. They just get worse and worse and shake the entire industry and it seems no one learns. From Cyberpunk to Anthem to Destiny 2. Now with GTA Trilogy to Battlefield 2042 to Fallout 76 and Just Cause 4.
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