Club Nintendo
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Club Nintendo is the name of several publications and programs by Nintendo.
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[edit] Club Nintendo (Latin America and Mexico)
Club Nintendo is the name of the official Nintendo magazine in Mexico and Latin America.
It was founded in 1991 by José "Pepe" Sierra and Gustavo "Gus" Rodriguez. Last year the magazine celebrated its 16th anniversary. At the anniversary celebration, they gave away Wii systems to a few people who attended the event.
[edit] Club Nintendo Japan
Club Nintendo (Japanese: クラブニンテンドー) is an official Nintendo club for Japanese fans. Membership is given as a type of commodity. Anyone who lives in Japan can eventually receive membership if the person gathers a certain amount of points which can be gained by purchasing and registering games published by Nintendo. They often receive nice and exclusive gifts from Nintendo, such as Wii remotes with television remote functionality, personalized imprints of their favorite Mii characters onto their Wii remotes, exclusive & unreleased games such as the recent Exclamation Warriors Sakeburein, game soundtrack CDs and exclusive accessories such as a Super Famicom style controller for Wii.
A Club Nintendo account can be linked to your Wii, and when Virtual Console games are purchased, they appear on the games registered list on your Club Nintendo account. You can then fill in a questionnaire for additional bonus points.
[edit] Club Nintendo Australia
Club Nintendo in Australia launched on April 24, 2008 with the launch of Mario Kart Wii. An invitation is included with the purchase of Mario Kart Wii. The Club Nintendo Australia website also states that Wii Fit, which was launched on May 8, 2008, can also be registered. At this point it is unclear what other games will become apart of the Club Nintendo Australia's rewards scheme. Club Nintendo Australia's operations could be a mix of both Japan's and Europe's with your Club Nintendo account linked to your Wii, completing surveys and getting Stars for buying Club Nintendo participating games on the Virtual Console. A majority of Nintendo Australia's website received a facelift when Club Nintendo Australia's operations started. The website is nearly finished and game registration is the only feature working at the present time. It is possible that merchandise from the Australian Stars catalogue could be a mixture of both NOJ and NOE's catalogue with some extras exclusive to Australia. The release of the coveted Super Nintendo classic controller for the Wii and exclusive games for Club Nintendo members are on the cards for Australia.
Rose Lappin, who is the president of Nintendo Australia said in an interview in The Age newspaper that the delay of the stars catalogue in Australia is because there is not enough hours in a day to set it up. Nintendo Australia is bringing in more people to work for them to bring the stars catalogue online. Rose also said that each Club Nintendo territory has different items, but some items are available through out all of Club Nintendo's territories. Most games published by Nintendo will have the Club Nintendo PIN in Australia. Super Smash Bros, Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What To Eat?, Actionloop Twist, Etrian Odyssey and Crosswords DS are most likely to have a Club Nintendo PIN number inside their boxes, because they are the only non Virtual Console games to have been classified by the Australian OFLC after the release of Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit that are published by Nintendo.
[edit] Club Nintendo Europe
[edit] Magazine
In Europe, Club Nintendo was the name of 3 magazines released starting 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 released in August 2002[1]
[edit] Nintendo VIP 24:7 (Redundant)
Nintendo VIP 24:7 was launched on May 3, 2002 to coincide with the launch of the Nintendo GameCube in Europe. It promised exclusive news, reviews, previews and forums. However, because released titles are often delayed in European countries (usually due to localisation), the exclusive features could be found elsewhere on the internet corresponding to the American release. [2]
To coincide with the release of the Wii Nintendo Europe's VIP 24:7 service has been renamed to Club Nintendo and adopted the Japanese Club Nintendo logo.
Club Nintendo of Europe features a star point system where members can exchange stars earned by registering games and consoles for assets in the Stars Catalogue. Users may enter PIN codes found on Nintendo VIP 24:7 inserts, included free with first party games and hardware to earn stars. These can range from 250 to 1000 stars. Upon registering as a member on Nintendo of Europe, one is rewarded with 250 stars. Visiting Nintendo of Europe daily used to earn a user 5 stars per day. This method of accumulating stars now appears to be defunct. Encouraging other people to register with Nintendo of Europe earns users 250 stars per sign-up. [1] After registering, you can choose to receive special emails from Nintendo. Sometimes, these emails include surveys, which, when filled in, will reward you with a number of stars (the amount varies per survey).
The assets in the stars catalogue include: games, hardware, posters, keyrings, clothing, bonus discs, bookmarks, calenders, soundtrack discs and Nintendo mobile ringtones.
Some criticism comes from the fact that even though it is a feature from Nintendo of Europe, it does not cover all of Europe. Countries that have a stars catalogue and can thus buy exclusive items are the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain and Italy. Unfortunately for some countries, the updating of the Stars Catalogue can be of a rarity.
Recently, after months of speculation it has now been confirmed that there will be a way of exchanging stars, for Wii Points in a similar fashion to Club Nintendo Japan. The service has been recently implemented.
In March 2007 during a test of the new system, 1000 Wii Points accidentally appeared in the stars catalogue for a price of 789 stars. Nintendo Europe have apologised for this and has offered anyone who purchased these either 1000 Wii Points or a refund of their stars. [3] [4]
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 you have earned before then will vanish from your account on July 1, 2008. Any stars earned after that date will disappear two years after earning them. If you choose not to accept this new Privacy Policy, you will lose all your stars instantly and your account will be locked. People who registered after the Wii's European launch date, December 8, 2006, are already using this system. To make up for the fact you will soon lose stars, Nintendo has promised to add Wii Points to the stars catalogue soon.[citation needed]
On September 25, 2007, Nintendo of Europe confirmed that the community section of their website had been closed, claiming that it was done in the interest of Nintendo enthusiasts, so that Nintendo could concentrate on bringing information to its fans about new releases and Nintendo news. The Swedish went the opposite way; it is planned to be changed "but likely not 2007".[citation needed] However, the main page as well as the forum's topics and members are planned will be deleted "with a chance of 90%", according to the boss of Bergsala, Kai Wenfielt (nicknamed God Hand).[5]
This site closed in November 2007, to be replaced by the new one.
[edit] New site
On the 23rd November 2007, Nintendo announced they were removing the five year old web site, to replace it with a more modern one. Nintendo "closed the curtain" on the site on the 26th November. On the 7th December 2007, to link with the Wii's one year birthday, the site was relaunched. With this update came stars to Wii points and physical items from the star catalogue (such as a Zelda statue, or a Mario DS games stand). The Wii Points cards are available in denominations of 100, 300, 500 and 1000, costing 400, 1200, 2000 and 4000 stars respectively. Members are only permitted to exchange stars for one card per day, and only a limited number of cards are available to all members each day, to prevent people taking advantage of the system. Due to the high demand for Wii points, the replenished cards are quickly snapped up every day.
[edit] Club Nintendo US
While Club Nintendo is everywhere, there has been the question why there isn't one in the US. In an interview with Perrin Kaplan asking why, she replied that the 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 are an alternative to Club Nintendo.[2]
