*UPDATE* I clarified with another GameStop employee that the promotion that offers $100 towards thew New 3DS trade-in runs through February 14th, which is a day after the official release. Which means theoretically you could perform your system transfer in the store, if the store allows it.
Currently, Gamestop is running a pretty sweet promotion towards the New Nintendo 3DS. If you trade in your Nintendo 3DS XL or PlayStation Vita, you get a $100 credit toward the New Nintendo 3DS. That's fantastic right? It sure seems that way, because you're essentially cutting down the price of the new system by half.
But things aren't so great if you're consumer focused primarily on digital copies of games, or even if you have purchased a digital version of a game before. Nintendo's current strategy on transfering games from one system to the next is rather archaic, in that it requires your old 3DS to transfer all the content and licenses to the new 3DS wirelessly.
What that means is if you trade in your 3DS XL now toward the New 3DS, and you have digital titles on it, you're going to lose all of them when you eventually pick up your new system. Pretty bad right?
Even though Nintendo is largely at fault for this terrible system, Gamestop is partially to blame as well. Since this is a pre-order campaign, you can't hold on to your 3DS until February 13th and do the transfer at Gamestop. That also means you'd be losing out on the $100 trade-in credit.
Had Gamestop extended this to at least February 13th or a few days after, gamers could have easily brought in their old 3DS handhelds, scan them in for a pre-order, but still perform the content transfer. Sure it would be clunky and not the most ideal situation store-wise, but right now it seems like those of us with a big digital library, will suffer from not being able to partake in this promotion and cut that cost in half.
