Anyone who has recently visited the Club Nintendo page saw an announcement that they may not like.
It looks like the reward program, that has been going for about six years, will soon come to its end. The reason given in this notice is “in order to focus on planning for a new customer loyalty program for our fans, we’ve decided to wind-down the Club Nintendo program.” So, I guess we will see “at a later date” just what they mean by a new customer loyalty program.
The program is set to end on July 1, 2015, and all of your precious coins will be deleted. In order to soften the blow (which I doubt is possible as the people that I’ve spoken with seem rather upset about this), they are adding dozens of downloadable games, and a limited quantity of exclusive rewards items. This will be done in February, so you still have plenty of time to let this all sink in before you decide which games you would like to purchase with your coins one last time.
In addition to the dozens of games being added, all Club Nintendo members will get a free download code for Flipnote Studio 3D (in February), as a “small token of appreciation for your loyalty.”
You might be wondering about any new games that you purchase. Can you use those to help build coins up towards purchasing all of these new to be added games? No. Not really. Anything purchased after 1/20/15 will not be eligible for registration. Also, according to this announcement, it seems that any “information in your Club Nintendo account will not be transferred to the new loyalty program.” Use ’em or lose ’em, I guess.
Other dates to note are:
- March 31st, 2015: “Last day to earn Coins, register products with Club Nintendo, and sign up for new Club Nintendo membership”
- June 30th, 2015: “Last day to redeem Coins or access your account on the Club Nintendo website. Club Nintendo program shuts down at 11:59pm PT on 6/30/2015.”
Check out the full announcement here and let us know what you think of Nintendo’s “out with the old and in with the new” attitude regarding the loyalty rewards program. Are bigger and better rewards in our future?
