If you’ve purchased a Nintendo Wii U or 3DS game recently, you may be familiar with Nintendo’s six-year-old loyalty program, Club Nintendo. Each new Nintendo game comes with a unique PIN, which you can enter into your online Club Nintendo account in exchange for special coins. These coins can in turn be spent downloading games or even getting physical rewards like stationery and posters (complete with free shipping).
A slip like this accompanies many Wii U games.
If this sounds like a cool program, I’m afraid you’re (mostly) out of luck: Nintendo announced today that Club Nintendo is coming to a close, to be replaced with a new loyalty program in July.
It’s definitely not all bad news. For one, Nintendo is planning on rolling out lots of new rewards in February to help their customers spend every last coin before the program ends on June 30. If you have some PINs saved up but never bothered to create an account, you have until the end of March to join. Products released after January 20 will not be eligible for registration, but old PINs can still be added until March 31.
None of your Club Nintendo information will be transferred to the new loyalty program (which we know very little about). However, if you reach Gold or Platinum membership before March 31, you will be able to redeem one free Wii U game or 3DS game from a “wide selection” of titles, to be announced soon.
You can read Nintendo’s full list of FAQs by clicking here.
