Not long ago I wrote an article asking you if you were a member of the Club, Club Nintendo that is. ( blog here) Today we got the news that after years of existence, every Club Nintendo will be closing its doors. Nintendo promises to come up with a new formula, I’m curious what that might be.
Even though a lot of people were not entirely satisfied with the goodies Nintendo offered for their stars, or didn’t want to fill in all the surveys. But I for one am going to miss it.
In North America people who are a member of the club in February will get Flipnote Studio 3D for free. In Europe you will get the game when you sign up for the new loyalty program during its launch.
These are the timelines you have to keep in mind if you still want to use your accumulated stars:
Japan
Club Nintendo will end from 1 February with the last codes being able to be registered from 20 April and the redeeming of points for goods on 30 September. Personaldetails will be erased from late March 2016. True to form, Nintendo Japan has added some nice goodies to the Club Nintendo store, so now is a good a time as ever to use your Japanese stars. More info here
North America
Earn coins through to the end of March
Ability to create an account closes at the end of March
Redeem coins until the end of June
Europe/ Australia
April 1st 2015: From this date, Nintendo will no longer include product registration cards with its packaged games, so such products cannot be registered in Club Nintendo. You may still find product registration cards in games that were in stock before this date, however.
April 20th 2015: Termination of the registration of digital products downloaded from Nintendo eShop. Digital products obtained from Nintendo eShop after this date will no longer appear in the My Registered Games & Systems page in Club Nintendo. In addition, surveys for download software titles will no longer be available.
September 30th 2015: End of Club Nintendo programme. All Club Nintendo features, such as signing up as a new member, logging in as a registered member, earning Stars, and exchanging Stars for items from the Stars Catalogue will no longer be possible from this date.
I will miss it as well!
I think the first thing I registered was my Game Boy Advance SP back in the day.
One of my rituals upon opening the case of a newly bought game was to scratch the code card and go to Club Nintendo to redeem the code.
This was one of the points that made Nintendo unique compared to its rivals.
I liked the idea of the loyalty program and got some nice items myself.
Well, I guess it was nice while it lasted.
Although I did not use it that much, I will miss it. I have a few games from Christmas I have yet to register. I really missed their magazine when they fazed it out. I made sure I got a copy of that last issue. I do hope that Nintendo does find some unique way to connect with their fans.
I’m confident they will. As you may have read I’ve got myself a Vita recently too, and im pleasantly surprised to see the contrast in he way Nintendo listens to its fans as compared to Sony.