Club Nintendo Goes Live
AKAImBatman writes "Nintendo has launched their new North American Club Nintendo service that allows customers to earn 'coins' for purchasing Nintendo products. Coins can then be redeemed for items like exclusive DS games, playing cards, Wii Remote holders, DS cases, and other Nintendo branded items. Points are earned by registering Wii games (50 points), DS games (30 points), or by purchasing Wii Shop items (10 points) after your Wii Shop account has been linked to your Club Nintendo account. Users may link their account under the 'Settings' area of the Wii Shop channel. Prices range from 300 coins for a Wii Remote holder to 800 coins for the Game & Watch Collection for the Nintendo DS."
I just logged in and converted my "My Nintendo" membership into "Club Nintendo" membership. It recognized 4 games and 1 Wiiware title that I had previously registered, and then allowed me to take a survey for each game. The surveys were pretty vague but after I was all finished I already have 210 coins. The biggest beef I've had since the beginning of my Wii experience is the fact that only Nintendo-brand games like Mario, Zelda, etc qualify to be registered. The dozen or so other games I've bought did not qualify, and there's not a good way to tell before hand if a game will qualify. I remember at the very beginning they advertised some deal like "register 5 games and get a free prize" however I could not find 5 games being sold that would qualify (this was like around 6 months after the Wii was released).
That's going to backfire on them. I'm not registering any first party titles to collect points *until* I see something good.