You may recall that, back in January, Nintendo announced the phasing out of its membership service, Club Nintendo, in preparation for its successor. Nintendo’s new membership service is coming about via a partnership between Nintendo and DeNA (a Japanese mobile gaming company). This will allow Nintendo to bring their intellectual property to mobile devices and also bring in more fans to their premium software titles on their dedicated console systems. At a recent investor’s meeting Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata, revealed some new details about Nintendo’s new membership service:
“While we will announce the details of this integrated membership service at a later date, I can share with you at a high level the idea is that the consumer can access multiple devices using one common ID.” The Nintendo President also went on to say “So far, the members input their Club Nintendo ID to use the services. With this new service, our members will be able to visit Nintendo’s website and log in with one ID, and they will receive various services including the ones based on their past purchases and gameplay records as well as services that will be an improved version of the current loyalty program.”
This new membership service will include mobile systems such as smart phones and tablets, as well as Nintendo’s dedicated console systems like 3DS, Wii U and their upcoming NX system.
This is all part of Nintendo’s undertaking to start developing software titles starring Nintendo intellectual property for mobile devices like smart phones and tablets. Through this partnership with DeNA, Nintendo hopes to bring their intellectual property to new markets and draw new players to its premium games on its dedicated console systems. This new membership program is the piece of the puzzle that will tie everything together. The first gaming apps developed in this partnership with DeNA will launch by the end of the year, with another four apps due out by the end of March 2017. The new membership service itself is also scheduled to release by the end of the year. It is essentially a bridge between mobile platforms and Nintendo’s dedicated gaming platforms. As such, it could be very beneficial if they do it right. One problem with Club Nintendo has been the fact that your eShop downloads are linked to the system you got them on, rather than to your Nintendo Network ID. Hopefully, the new membership service will remedy this problem, as well. We shall see.
“For us to be able to bridge the gap between smart devices and dedicated game systems, we will offer advantages to consumers who use one ID across multiple devices,” explained Iwata, “With this new membership, we are planning to deploy services that will make playing Nintendo games with their game pals more fun regardless of which platform they are accessing.”
