Nintendo has announced it will begin scrapping its Club Nintendo loyalty program with effect from April this year.
The Club Nintendo loyalty program, which has ran for more than six years, allowed members to exchange Coins or Stars for posters, figures and downloadable games.
Nintendo announced that it will stop including product registration cards with its physical games from April 1 onwards. Next it will cease the ability to register games downloaded from the Nintendo eShop on April 20. Surveys for such downloaded titles will also no longer be available.
Then finally on September 30, all Club Nintendo features will be removed, and users will no longer be able to access accounts or redeem Stars against products from the catalogue.
In North America, members can continue to earn Coins until the end of March, after which they will have until the end of June to redeem. Whereas in Europe, users can earn Starts and redeem them until 30th September 2015, Nintendo confirmed.
Nintendo promised to replace the loyalty scheme with a new programme before the end of the year. Those who sign up to the new scheme will get a free digital copy of 3DS title Flipnote Studio 3D. It is to be noted that the new Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL launching on February 13 will not be eligible to get registered on Club Nintendo.
“We thank all Club Nintendo members for their dedication to Nintendo games and their ongoing love for our systems and characters,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing.
“We want to make this time of transition as easy as possible for our loyal Club Nintendo members, so we are going to add dozens of new rewards and downloadable games to help members clear out their Coin balances.”
