Club_Nintendo

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Club Nintendo

Club Nintendo is the name of several publications and a customer loyalty program by Nintendo.

Publications

Mexico and Latin America

Club Nintendo is the name of the official Nintendo magazine in Mexico and Latin America.

The magazine was founded in December of 1991 by José "Pepe" Sierra and Gustavo "Gus" Rodriguez. It was the first magazine in Mexico about Nintendo made by fans of video games, and quickly became the leading game magazine in Mexico. In 2007, the magazine celebrated its 16th anniversary.

Europe

In Europe, Club Nintendo was the name of three magazines which started publishing in 1989. The European version was published in several languages, and there were separate publications for Germany, Scandinavia and Finland. All were later discontinued and eventually replaced. The last German issue was published in August 2002.

Loyalty program

The Club Nintendo loyalty program offers rewards to members who collect points (sometimes referred to as "Stars" or "Star Points", the program is also commonly known as the Stars Catalogue) which are gained primarily by purchasing and registering certain first-party hardware and software titles by Nintendo. Points are also awarded for the purchase of select third-party titles, and can also be obtained by participating in surveys, inviting others to become a Club Nintendo member or even simply visiting a web site.

Rewards range from digital content such as computer wallpaper, music and mobile phone ringtones, to physical items such as keyrings, calenders, t-shirts and other clothing items, to premium items such as soundtrack albums, game controllers and Club Nintendo exclusive games. Many reward items are only exclusive to particular Club Nintendo territories, and physical items are sometimes only available in limited quantities.

Japan

Club Nintendo (Japanese: クラブニンテンドー) is an official Nintendo club for Japanese fans. It was the first Club Nintendo program to be set up.

The Japanese Club Nintendo offers rewards such as Wii Remotes with television remote control functionality, exclusive and unreleased games such as Exclamation Warriors Sakeburein, game soundtrack CDs and exclusive accessories such as a Super Famicom style Classic Controller for the Wii.

Europe

Club Nintendo in Europe was launched as Nintendo VIP 24:7 on May 3, 2002, to coincide with the European launch of the Nintendo GameCube. It promised exclusive news, reviews, previews and forums to members. However, because released titles are often delayed in European countries (usually due to localization), the exclusive features could be often found elsewhere on the internet. To coincide with the release of the Wii, VIP 24:7 was renamed to Club Nintendo and adopted the Japanese Club Nintendo logo.

The Club Nintendo of Europe features a Star Points system where members can exchange stars earned by registering games and consoles for items in the Stars Catalogue, and for Wii Points to use in the Wii Shop Channel, which are available only in sets of 100, 300, 500 and 1000 Points. Originally, a maximum of two Wii Points Cards per day per account was available for purchase; this later changed to one a day. Since September 2008, stars can also be used to buy singles and albums at the music online store emusu.com.

Members enter PIN codes found on inserts included with first party games and hardware to earn stars. These can range from 250 to 1000 stars in value. Upon registering as a member on Nintendo of Europe's website, one is rewarded with 250 stars. Encouraging other people to register with Nintendo of Europe earns members 250 stars per sign-up. After registering, members can choose to receive special emails from Nintendo, which can include surveys which also reward members with stars. Daily visits to the website also once earned members 5 stars per day, but this was later removed.

Criticism

Some criticism comes from the fact that the Nintendo of Europe Stars Catalogue is only available to members in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain and Italy. In addition, Nintendo of Europe's website is notorious for becoming easily overwhelmed by traffic when quantities of the more valuable items are added, which often causes difficulty for customers who are attempting to make purchases. There was also some consternation that very few items were added to the site for an extended period of time, with the frequency of larger batches of non-digital items being added becoming quite rare.

In March 2007 during a test of the new Wii Points purchasing system, 1000 Wii Points accidentally appeared in the stars catalogue for a price of 789 stars. Nintendo of Europe offered anyone who purchased these either 1000 Wii Points or a refund of their stars. In addition, upon the official launch of the Wii Points Cards offer, the website was swamped with traffic, meaning very few people could login and take advantage of the Wii Points trade on offer. The system has also been criticised because the Wii Points Card codes are only available in limited stock, and so it is near impossible to get hold of them.

At the beginning of June 2007, Nintendo of Europe revealed that starting July 1, 2007, they will make drastic changes to their privacy policy. Any stars that members have earned before then will vanish from their accounts on July 1, 2008, and any stars earned after that date will disappear two years after earning them. Members who choose not to accept the new privacy policy will lose all their stars instantly and have their account locked. Members who registered after the Wii's European launch date, December 8, 2006, are not affected.

Australia

Club Nintendo in Australia was launched in April 2008 to coincide with the release of Mario Kart Wii. While Nintendo Australia has confirmed that the Australian Club Nintendo reward catalogue will be unique from Club Nintendo Europe and Club Nintendo Japan, as of October 2008, only game registration is available. Rose Lappin, Managing Director of Nintendo Australia, claims in an interview with The Age that the program is still in the process of being set up.

All games either distributed or published by Nintendo Australia after Mario Kart Wii will contain a card that allows buyers to register their games for Club Nintendo points.

South Africa

Club Nintendo launched in South Africa in June 2008. Currently, the only items in the reward catalogue are computer wallpapers.

North America

Club Nintendo for North America was announced in October 2008. It is scheduled to be launched by the end of the year.

Previously, questions were raised over its absence in the region. In an interview with Perrin Kaplan concerning the prior absence of the program, she replied that the inclusion area of the US is much larger than all the other Club Nintendo countries, and that cost-wise it would be very expensive to set up. Kaplan also said that the pre-order bonuses and game registration promos Nintendo and other companies already offer are an alternative to Club Nintendo. However Nintendo relented due to customer demand.