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Club Nintendo Goes Live

Posted by Soulskill on from the who-doesn't-love-proprietary-currency dept.

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."

8 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Link is wrong by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the link I originally submitted: http://www.wiimedia.com/news/view/club_nintendo_goes_live/

    The information is more or less the same, but Ars takes a very negative view on the service and the issues they're having.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:Link is wrong by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 4, Funny

      First post on a story you submitted yourself.

      Congratulation! The obsessive-refresh-click is strong in this one.

      --
      There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    2. Re:Link is wrong by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, it's kind of dead in here. I would have expected more people to be excited about this. Granted, the technical problems are putting a real dampener on things. (When I submitted the story, the site was operating fine. Didn't take long for that to change.) But it's still kind of cool. Ars' complaint about having to spend $800 to get a $20 game misses the point. The point is that if you already spent the money (which a lot of gaming fans have), then this program offers some nice rewards for being a loyal customer. Spending money for the explicit purpose of getting stuff on the site seems a bit silly.

      On another subject, anyone else notice that the site uses the Struts framework? If the issues they're experiencing are any indication, I'd say this is a perfect example of why Struts should never be used for a scalable solution. In my experience, far too much logic gets executed on every request while accomplishing very little. Especially when programmers are tempted into putting session initializer actions into their webapp. Then things just go haywire. ;-)

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. Less than I'd hoped for. by Steauengeglase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reset on coins every "year" really sucks out any enthusiasm I'd have for this. Not sure if it is fear of the resale market (register games I'd paid $10 for instead of $60) or simply another inducement for kids to buy the next copy of Pokemon garnet-spiral ham, but as a long time consumer of the Big N's products this comes off as kind of dickish.

    1. Re:Less than I'd hoped for. by MagicM · · Score: 3, Informative

      Coins don't reset every year. Gold/Platinum status resets every year. Coins expire between 2 and 3 years.
      From the FAQ, Coins and Status (Gold, Platinum):

      Gold or Platinum status is based on the number of Coins earned in a Club Nintendo year. Each Club Nintendo year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30. If you earn 300 Coins during a Club Nintendo year you will reach Gold status. Earn 600 Coins during a Club Nintendo year and reach Platinum status! [...] Your status will reset annually on June 30.

      Unredeemed Coins will expire two (2) full Club Nintendo years (July 1 - June 30), plus whatever is left in the current Club Nintendo year, after they are earned.

  3. Why only first party titles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is it that the only retail games purchased with codes redeemable are Nintendo's first-party titles? In Japan, pretty much every game, including third-party, comes with a Club Nintendo code to redeem. It's much easier there to gain codes than it is here.

    Sure, the only games for Wii that I'd be willing to spend money on are most likely first-party, but for the DS? My money is on third-party.

    And none of my old GC games are eligible? Why?

  4. My experience by KuNgFo0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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).

  5. 1UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    If I get 100 coins, do I get another chance at life?