Gamereactor competition winner gives New 3DS to charity

Our colleagues over at Gamereactor Spain just held a little competition over on Twitter in collaboration with Nintendo, with the prize for one lucky user being a New Nintendo 3DS XL - Zelda Majora's Mask 3D Limited Edition.

Given the interest each Zelda product generates, plus the novelty of a New Nintendo 3DS (which is also the best model of the handheld to date) and, above all, the great difficulty some have had getting hold of the Limited Edition, it wasn't much of a surprise to hear that the competition proved very popular.

Yesterday a winner was selected, but it seems our lucky winner is in fact extremely lucky; just minutes after announcing the prize winner, some Twitter users began to point out something quite remarkable, that this Zelda fan (who had decided to recall the music of the classic Game Boy entry as his most fond memory), had been enjoying a uniquely lucky day. From thousands of participants, he had won the same prize from two different magazines.

And then what? Of course our winner could have done whatever he wanted with his legitimately won prize; we can't control who has participated in the contests of other gaming sites after all. What GR did was to invite the winner, if he wanted to make a nice gesture, to give up his second handheld so we could draw a new winner, so that other readers might get a second chance to win the sought-after New 3DS.

Well, our competition winner's decision this morning was not only altruistic, but in the end turned into a wonderful gesture. He transformed his prize into a generous offering to those who need it the most. This is how he responded:

"Well, this is the bomb, of course I want BOTH. ... Nooo j/k, please choose another winner." "Of course that after winning two raffles it should be another Gamereactor user who enjoys that handheld." "Well you're wrong, people can be NICE". "This makes me think: what if the new winner is the Juegaterapia Foundation? Seems like the best decision!" "Let be it, there's going to be a kid whose life will soon be a little bit happier."

Definitely a touching gesture and a lesson of generosity that other readers started to recognise immediately. Indeed, the winner could have tried to sell the hard-to-find console, or could have given it to a friend or relative, but instead he gave it to the Juegaterapia Foundation (@juegaterapia).

This is an organisation dedicated to collecting games and consoles for young people to play during chemotherapy, as well as building rooftop gardens in hospitals, so that treatment might be less traumatic for young patients, thus bringing excitement to the lives of children battling cancer.

A nice reminder that there's some things in life more important that handhelds and video games.