Back in the day, Nintendo lost an anti-trust lawsuit by Nintendo. They were forced to send out a $5 coupon to anyone who bought a Nintendo Game. The Gaming Historian covered this in his latest episode.





I remember getting this coupon... but I spent it. Does anyone have their original coupon? Or at least a picture of it?

Never heard of it 'till now. Looked it up, and found this: http://i.imgur.com/uWc8v4r.jpg...

This is some of his best historian work yet.

Nintendo was being a control freak till this lawsuit happened.

So, does anybody who received the coupon remember what game they bought with it?
I used mine to get a copy of Super C from Target. It was $19.99 before the $5 off. Not a bad deal

Apparently I must have not sent in anything as I don't recall getting one or if I did I didn't use it.

I bought legacy of the wizard. And didn't like it, so I returned it for Godzilla. And liked this game much more than legacy. Keeping in mind I'm a big Zelda fan, and I'm also a falcom fanboy too, I just can not like that game.

Nintendo was shady and slightly unethical long after the coupon too with the "Develop for us only or else" crap, and controlling how many carts 3rd party developers had published. Always surprises me how few people seem to talk about that; some people even get defensive if you mention it.

HEY!

I have one of these coupons! It wasn't mine originally, I bought it on eBay for $30 a few years ago. It's amazingly awesome and is hanging in a frame on my wall with the letter from Roland Burris talking about what a "win" for consumers it was.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.co...

http://www.video-game-ephemera.co...

I win $5 that I can only claim if I buy a $50 game.  Yea, thanks for not shafting me too hard this time, Nintendo.

Man, I'm bummed I never got one of these - I got my NES for Christmas 1990, so I totally would have qualified. I probably just would have blown it on Ghostbusters II or some garbage, though.

Pics or it never happened

Pics of what? The framed coupon? It's in the first link there on the NWR forums (along with a link to the original eBay auction, although the photos from it are since removed). It's a potato-quality photo, but it is there.

Here's mine with the original evnelope from Missouri.

I love that your letter and my letter are word-for-word identical (swapping out states and names), even though they're from two different states.

Mmmm well now I can say I didn't get one of those.

There's mine, can't remember the state.  Texas maybe?  People had to have sent in a reg card in order to have received one.

Here's one from Arkansas. Maybe we'll eventually get all 50 states!

Still have mine too. 

What state?  We've got Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, wherever UncleBob's is from and now Maryland as well.  Potentially at 5% done with the US run on these....

 Maryland.  Sorry but no coupon.  Dood must of used it.... 

I remember hearing something about this years after the NES phased out. Wasn't that why Ultra Games(TMNT, Metal gear, Skate or Die, etc) was even formed? Just as a separate branch of Konami, so Konami could make more games? 

NY

In part.  Nintendo had rules for how many games you could publish per year, and they reviewed your game to decide if it would be published (Including rejecting it for censorship reasons).

Once it was approved, they made the carts for you, so they got a share of that, and they also pretty much told you how many carts you would have produced. 

I still have this along woth the letter. The coupon was useless, as it was only good toward an 8-bit game. By the time the coupon arrived, I had moved on to the SNES.

^Is the Canadian version of the letter any different than the U.S. one?

You got to love these settlements that work out in the company's favor.
"Oh No! We have to give coupons to people? Coupons that make people spend money that they otherwise wouldn't?"

^ yup. "Sorry you cant trust us, here is $5 to buy a game from us as an apology"