Nintendo had to do some quick sleight of hand when it announceed an $80 price cut on its 3DS portable gaming device less than six months after its launch. To appease disgruntled gamers who had just spent $250 on the now-$170 device, the company offered an open invitation to all pre-price slash 3DS owners for its Ambassador Program, which will reward members with 20 free downloadable games on the platform before the end of 2011.
Ensuring your admittance to the program was as simple as firing up your 3DS and signing into its online eShop by August 11, the day before the price drop went live. 3DS owners quickly learned that there was no confirmation of Ambassador admittance on the 3DS side, you simply had to take Nintendo’s word for it that signing in would set you straight. You can double check just to be sure now though, thanks to an update on the company’s support site.
Simply follow the above link and input your 3DS serial number into the text box. You’ll find it on the back of your portable, located just beneath a SKU code on a little white sticker. It’s an 11-character string, so make sure you enter in that last number as well, the one inside the little box. For the record, I have one of the pre-price cut 3DS’s, I signed onto the eShop the day the Ambassador Program was announced and, sure enough, I’m listed as confirmed.
The first 10 games will arrive starting September 1, all of them classic NES games ported to the eShop’s Virtual Console. The other 10 will come before the end of the year, and those have all been confirmed to be Game Boy Advance titles. A handful of the included games have been revealed so far, with fan favorites like The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. on the NES side and Metroid Fusion and Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 on the GBA side.
