About a year ago, I was on Nintendo's online store looking for GB Micro face plates. While there, I noticed that they still had stock of the e-Readers for the system. It was being sold at the original retail price NIB, which is actually overpaying what NIB for the device costs on eBay. I found it amusing that Nintendo had such a hard time selling them that they couldn't get rid of them. I decided that I would check up on it every 2 months or so to see if it ever got sold. It appears that this has finally happened (or Nintendo gave up) and the Item is now listed as unable to purchase. It is still an item available to buy, however it is out of stock and will probably never become restocked. http://store.nintendo.com/webapp/wc...goryId=57903&ddkey=http:SetCurrencyPreference
I love that thing. Shame that outside of Animal Crossing it wasn't really used. Nintendo using NFC on Wii U will end up the same fate I fear, use it once and be done. Although I will say that releasing NES games on the thing was a waste considering you had to scan 2 sides of each card for a total of 10 scans to play a simple game. It's use for Animal Crossing unlocking stuff was a better idea. I'm still trying to collect the SMB3 ones.
I think the Mario Party e-Reader card game was a pretty good idea too. Scanning in a mini-game was a clever idea.
I think the most ironic thing is that the E-reader doesn't work with the GBA SP, you had to have one of the old ones (or a Gamecube with the GB Player) to use it.
They work. You just can't close the LCD lid without removing the eReader. I modded one of my eReader by removing the pass through link connector so it could be used and left in my SP. The link is on the back so the pass through connector wasn't needed on SP. All you need is a tri-wing screwdriver to open it and I think phillips to remove the 4 holding screws to remove the cable. The cable does nothing with eReader itself and is needed only on original GBA when the link port got blocked.
Fair enough, my mistake. I thought it needed the other input for e-reading stuff. I think I still have mine in a box somewhere, but the cards are long gone.
It is, but I'm not sure how they plan on using it. Polygon says they want to use it for a payment card, as well as a Pokemon game a la Skylanders (which I'm thinking is a fad that will go away shortly) http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/25/4265432/nintendo-wii-u-gamepad-nfc-small-payments I can't see how that would be better than having a stored card to use for transactions like Sony and Microsoft use.
