Club Nintendo Shutting Down

Club Nintendo has been a staple of Nintendo gaming since 2007 in Europe, 2009 in North America, where gamers can register games and consoles with unique codes in each package, to gain Stars. These Stars could be redeemed against digital and physical merchandise ranging from desktop wallpapers to plushies.

As you may have gathered from our usage of past-tense, Club Nintendo is closing down and your Stars will become worth exactly nothing.

But it's not all bad news - a new loyalty programme is being developed! It just won't use your Stars nor transfer them to the new programme. This is a blow to those who have been saving them up, but you do still have time to spend them.

Club Nintendo Discontinuation Schedule:

North America:

20th January: Products released after this date are not eligible for registration with Club Nintendo.

31st March: Last day to earn Coins, register products with Club Nintendo, and sign up for new Club Nintendo membership

30th June: Last day to redeem Coins or access your account on the Club Nintendo website. Club Nintendo program shuts down at 11:59pm PT on 6/30/2015.

Europe:

1st April: From this date, Nintendo will no longer include product registration cards with its packaged games, so such products cannot be registered in Club Nintendo. You may still find product registration cards in games that were in stock before this date, however.

20th April: Termination of the registration of digital products downloaded from Nintendo eShop. Digital products obtained from Nintendo eShop after this date will no longer appear in the My Registered Games & Systems page in Club Nintendo. In addition, surveys for download software titles will no longer be available.

30th September: End of Club Nintendo programme. All Club Nintendo features, such as signing up as a new member, logging in as a registered member, earning Stars, and exchanging Stars for items from the Stars Catalogue will no longer be possible from this date.

What's more, for those in North America simply having a Club Nintendo account qualifies you for a free copy of Flipnote Studio 3D in February - and sign ups are open until the end of March! However users in Europe will have to wait until they sign up for the new programme - "within the launch period" - to get a copy of Flipnote Studio 3D. 

You can find the full information here for Europe and here for North America.