Nintendo’s Facebook page features a contest for the new 3DS Card Case 18. Send in a photo of yourself and your favorite Club Nintendo prize, with a note about why you love Club Nintendo (there’s pretty much just the one reason, right?) and you could win one of the cases.

After seeing this, Eric and I got super suspicious. What’s going on with this case? Nintendo is promoting this one thing way more than it ever has with previous rewards, including sending review samples to the press (like us, and JC Fletcher of Joystiq.com). And now there’s this contest, which someone had to put a non-zero amount of time into putting together.

It’s a really nice item, but is that the only reason for the media blitz? I don’t have any answers; I’m just wondering out loud about this sudden shift in policy. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

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See also: Previous Club Nintendo rewards

tags / club nintendo / 3ds / nintendo 3ds / jc / gaming