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'Club Nintendo is dead, long live the new loyalty program,' is the message from Nintendo this morning, after the company announced it's closing its current rewards service. Users in the US and Canada have until the end March to earn Club Nintendo Coins and until the close of June to redeem them, signalling when the service will finally hang up its brown boots.
"We thank all Club Nintendo members for their dedication to Nintendo games and their ongoing love for our systems and characters," said Nintendo of America executive VP Scott Moffit in the company's press release. "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's Australian, Japanese, and European branches posted similar announcements this morning, though the various dates differ by region. In Europe, for example, users have until September 30 to grab some Club Nintendo goodies.
On the bright side, next month sees Nintendo add more physical rewards to Club Nintendo and make Flipnote Studio 3D free for all members until June 30. FYI: If you want to register a new, to-be-short-lived Club Nintendo account, you have until March 31.
The Club Nintendo loyalty service began life back in 2002 as Nintendo VIP 24:7 in Europe, and only made its way stateside in 2008 when it replaced the My Nintendo registration program. Over the last six years users have registered their Nintendo products to earn Club Nintendo Coins, which they've been able to exchange for a variety of physical and downloadable gifts.
Purchase-happy Club Nintendo members have seen their abodes fill up over the last half-decade with Gold Nunchuks, 3DS game card cases, AR t-shirts, Super Mushroom tote bags, calendars with misspelled months, and of course a few M-emblazoned caps. The service caused a bit of a stir, however, when last year's Elite rewards contained no physical items,
As for the new loyalty program, Nintendo simply said it'll be announced "at a later date."
