While not figure news, I do have something to share that I think Nintendo fans will want to know about.  Penny Arcade, which started as a webcomic and has become wildly successful and now puts on video game conventions, is offering a new line of collectible Mario pins!  These pins look like art straight from the game in all its 8-Bit glory and the overall quality is high too.  The packaging also gets high marks for replicating an old NES cartridge.  If this doesn’t tickle your nostalgia bone, then nothing will!  Since they are pins that can be attached to other things, there is definitely some cool display possibilities here too.  Maybe you can recreate a Mario level or decorate a piece of corkboard and hang that on your wall.

For those who don’t know, these pins will be random since they are blind boxes.  Some people love these kinds of products and others hate them.  Each box will have two pins it and you can see the odds below.  Blind boxes are popular for small figures and collectibles and so this format for the pins makes sense and is a way to get Nintendo fans hooked on collecting them.  The character selection is very good in this set and personally, I’d love to have quite a few of these (especially that Kuribo’s Boot, shocking I know!).

There is one catch besides the randomness, the price of these is a bit steep at $22 each.  That means each pin is $11 and the possibility of getting a double since these are random is not too exciting.  Not all Nintendo fans are going to be a player at this price and that is a shame.  I think if they could get the price under $10 (even if it meant a drop in quality), that would help these pins reach a much bigger audience.  I think I’d like to pick one of these up at some point and review them.  I don’t think I will collect them all or anything like that since they are quite pricey but you never know!  They certainly look like they’d be fun to buy and open.

What are your thoughts on this new product?  Is it something you might buy?  Let us know in the comments below!