For years now, Club Nintendo has been offering special goodies to fans. But as of today, it’s going away. But don’t fret. Not yet. Nintendo is planning a new loyalty program with new rewards.
Official notices have been posted by Nintendo in Japan, Europe and Australia. The US site is currently closed for maintenance.
Kotaku is reaching out to Nintendo of America and will update this story should the company comment.
Update: Nintendo of America is likewise following suit. Here is the official statement:
Nintendo Prepares to Discontinue Club Nintendo Rewards Program
New Loyalty Program to be Announced at a Later Date; Flipnote Studio 3D Offered to Club Nintendo Members
REDMOND, Wash. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — After more than six years of delivering fun Nintendo-themed rewards to its members, Club Nintendo is preparing to shut down. Nintendo’s loyalty-rewards program rewarded members with a variety of items, such as downloadable games, Nintendo posters or character figures in exchange for Coins that members earned by registering products or completing surveys. Club Nintendo members in the United States and Canada can earn additional Coins through the end of March, and can redeem those Coins through the end of June. Nintendo of America will be announcing a new customer loyalty program at a later date.
“We thank all Club Nintendo members for their dedication to Nintendo games and their ongoing love for our systems and characters,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “We want to make this time of transition as easy as possible for our loyal Club Nintendo members, so we are going to add dozens of new rewards and downloadable games to help members clear out their Coin balances.”
Nintendo will add a number of physical reward options for members in February. Members will also be able to choose from a lineup of many downloadable games. As a gift to Club Nintendo members, the Flipnote Studio 3D software will be available to download for free in February. This software will allow users to create unique three-dimensional animations and to exchange their creations via local wireless with others who also own Flipnote Studio 3D. Users who uploaded creations to Flipnote Hatena will be able to download their personal animations from the Nintendo DSi Library menu in Flipnote Studio 3D software. Flipnote Studio 3D will be available to Club Nintendo members until June 30. The ability to create a new Club Nintendo account will end on March 31. All users who register to Club Nintendo before registration closes will be eligible to receive Flipnote Studio 3D.
For more information about Club Nintendo, visit https://club.nintendo.com. For more information on Flipnote Studio 3D, visit
Below, you can read the statement from Nintendo of Europe:
Important information about the discontinuation of Club Nintendo
20/01/2015
Nintendo’s first loyalty programmes, VIP 24:7 and Club Member, started in May 2002, and were combined in December 2007 to become Club Nintendo. Over the years, players have enjoyed the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U platforms, and countless software titles across them all. We’ve also heard the feedback and opinions of around six million Club Nintendo members across Europe and South Africa, which we have used to help shape our business.
We’re working hard to create a new programme, which we plan to launch later this year. And as a special offer, users who sign up to the new programme during the launch period will be able to download Flipnote Studio 3D to a Nintendo 3DS system for free. Please stay tuned to the Nintendo website for further details.
This new membership programme will replace Club Nintendo, so we will discontinue Club Nintendo according to the schedule given below. Thank you for all your support.
As Stars in your account will expire on September 30th 2015, please make sure you use them before this date. There are plenty of unique and exclusive items already available in the Stars Catalogue, and we’ll keep adding more over the coming months, so there’s plenty to spend your Stars on before September 30th 2015.
Please stay tuned for more information about the new membership programme, including its launch date.
Club Nintendo Discontinuation Schedule
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.
New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL
These new handheld systems, which will be released on February 13th 2015, are not registerable in Club Nintendo. However, hardware bundles will still include a product registration card for the included software until April 1st 2015, so software bundled with hardware can still be registered until September 30th 2015.
Stars
Please exchange any Stars in your account for items from the Stars Catalogue before September 30th 2015. Any Stars not used by this date will be lost, so be sure to use them as soon as possible. There are plenty of unique and exclusive items already available in the Stars Catalogue, and we’ll keep adding more over the coming months, so there’s plenty to spend your Stars on before September 30th 2015.
Comments
18 responses to “Nintendo Closing Club Nintendo (But Don’t Panic)”
Well I’ve got 2000 coins to burn on the US site now. CN exclusive Amiibo Ninty?
I will always treasure the snes classic controller I got from them… and the zelda posters.
Now I have 3700 stars to get rid of, possibly more if Majoras Mask comes with a card.
I hope the new thing is linked to the NNID and it becomes a unified account system where VC games bought on WiiU can be played on 3DS and vice versa.
Was that SNES controller ever offered through Club Nintendo Australia?
Yep, many years ago. Only for a brief period though.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the Australian Club Nintendo rarely added anything worth getting, and lacked the digital rewards the US club had, which has resulted in me having over 3000 stars to use at current time.
On the other hand, having all those stars made me feel good knowing that when the next SNES controller, or Luigi diorama rolled around, I’d be able to get it. That rare, awesome reward made Club Nintendo great.
So mixed feelings, definitely. It’s a shame Nintendo isn’t rolling unused stars into the points balance of the new system, whatever that ends up being. That would be a better way than forcing existing users to burn their star balance on the crap currently on offer.
They’re probably forcing people to use them so they can get rid of that crap from their warehouses 😛
Guess I should go order a pencil case or something useless…
Hmmm, I just burned a whole bunch because they were about to expire. Most of the stuff is pretty useless but the Pikmin Tote bag caught my eye. So I’e got one of those on the way. Going to be annoyed if some awesome stuff comes up right at the end!
I’m gonna hold out a bit before spending my measly 1550 points, but honestly that statement probably only applies for the international Club Nintendo. The Australian Club Nintendo has always been crap compared to others.
I just got the email from the Australian one. No mention of specific goodies.
And here’s the official Aus/NZ statement, conspicuously absent from the above article…
Thank you for your ongoing support of Nintendo.
Club Nintendo launched in Australia and New Zealand in 2008 with the launch of Mario Kart Wii, and Nintendo fans have enjoyed countless software titles across the years, with their feedback and opinions helping to shape our business.
We’re working hard to create a new membership programme, which we plan to launch later this year. As a special offer, users who sign up to the new programme during the launch period will be able to download Flipnote Studio 3D to a Nintendo 3DS system for free. Please stay tuned to the Nintendo Australia website for further details.
This new membership programme will replace Club Nintendo, so we will discontinue Club Nintendo according to the schedule given below. Thank you for all your support.
As Stars in your account will expire on September 30th 2015, please make sure you use them before this date. There are plenty of unique and exclusive items already available in the Stars Catalogue, and we’ll keep adding more over the coming months, so there’s plenty to spend your Stars on before September 30th 2015.
Please stay tuned for more information about the new membership programme, including its launch date.
Club Nintendo Discontinuation Schedule
April 1st 2015: From this date, Nintendo will no longer include product registration cards with its packaged products, so such products cannot be registered in Club Nintendo. You may still find product registration cards in products 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.
New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL
These handheld systems are not registrable in Club Nintendo.
Stars
Please exchange any Stars in your account for items from the Stars Catalogue before September 30th 2015. Any Stars not used by this date will be lost, so be sure to use them as soon as possible. There are plenty of unique and exclusive items already available in the Stars Catalogue, and we’ll keep adding more over the coming months, so there’s plenty to spend your Stars on before September 30th 2015.
… yaaaay =_____=
you’d be surprised how many people are excited about this I have no idea why though.
Well I guess something free is better than nothing, but Id rather a free gameboy VC game or something along those lines
Thanks for posting this. I have so many unused codes; nice to know there’s still a few months to do something with them.
Oh no! I just spent all of mine the other week on a Mario Cap and Mario Shoelaces. ..The Mario shoelaces were missing from the delivery though, so I need to call them. :C
I only have 1100 stars, and there was never really anything I wanted anyway (even if I had an infinite number of stars). May as well just let them disappear.
Every time I try and use them it says sale unsuccessful…. So I guess mine will disappear.
Contact them… I have nearly 4k “stars” with Nintendo Australia… Pity there’s so little on offer from them…
I also have about 4600 stars.. never used any but always checked in time to time.. have we ever been able to redeem them for digital copies of the games.. for life of me can’t find a way.
They better bring Flipnotes back……I will send them so many letters if they dare not to…..