Japan get Mario Kart or Rosalina playing cards with Amazon pre-orders of Mario Kart 8

Remember our post about the pre-order rewards for Mario Kart 8 available to the UK & Europe where people could get Bullet Bill T-Shirts, Limited edition blue shells, and a selection of keychains? well I thought it was strange at the time that we hadn't heard anything similar for Japanese or North American pre-orders as they usually wipe the floor with us on promotions and freebies.

Nintendo of Japan have today struck back; for anyone in Japan who preorders Mario Kart 8 from Amazon there will be some really neat looking playing cards as a free gift.

Personally, if I was a couple of thousand miles east, I'd be opting for this preorder. But for those of us who can't get hold of the special Mario Kart 8 preorder cards - Nintendo still have something for us in the form of Club Nintendo Europes rather shiny Premium Super Mario Playing Cards which you can pick up for 3000 star points (those same ones had previously been available in the USA too).

Looking forward to seeing what they'll get over in the U.S, I expect I'll be strutting along in my Bullet Bill T-Shirt thinking I'm the shizz before a U.S Mario Kart 8 owner drives past in the free life size Mario Kart he/she acquired with his/her pre-order, spits at me and drives off laughing :-)