Club Nintendo Shutting Down

I guess it was inevitable since the Wii U flopped and the rewards were getting cheaper and cheaper every year. They offering a lot of downloads and a few physical items for all of those, much like myself, that's been saving up coins for when a nice piece of physical merch comes out. Spend those coins (or input your games and then spend those coins) before the cut off or the coins are lost forever.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2015/01/20/club-nintendo-shutting-down/

http://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13913/p/52



first Nintendo Power, now this? ugh please Nintendo don't die.

The Nintendo Power and the Club Nintendo was really a fan thingy. Sort of their point of contact that made being a fan more personal. Not understanding these moves. Especially when our coins are non transferable. With millions of members and our coins are non transferable?

Really?

I think that the Mario and Zelda franchises are still keeping Nintendo valid to an extent.

The iterations of Pokémon for all of the handheld consoles seem to do well too.

I just wish that they had a strong third-party lineup and that the Metroid franchise hadn't been thrown in the trash (The Other M particularly).

Mario and Zelda (and pokemon) keep Nintendo floating there's no doubt about that. Metroid, Starfox, Kirby, et al are great 1st party franchises that have waned (but hey, it happens look what sega has done to sonic). Nintendo needs get back to cutting edge technology, standard remote, and kiss every 3rd party butt (not to mention make the hardware easy / cost effective to develop on), or go the way of sega and put Mario on every playstation and xbox console or try what neo geo, Panasonic, and Phillips did (pander to a niche group) and eventually fail.

I hate they're giving up on club Nintendo and have low expectations for whatever they replace it with but I remain hopeful. Nintendo has become my "and" systems since the 32 bit era (psx AND n64, ps2 AND gcn, 360 AND wii, ps4 AND wiiu) so I'd like to see them stay at least the number 2 system but if they (and I don't see this happening) out hardware sony and Microsoft I'd love to have them as my number 1 and screw sony and Microsoft but again that'll never be the case. I just don't want to see them go under and if this restructuring with club Nintendo is a step towards righting the ship then I'm cool with the sacrifice but I fear this may be an early sign of darker times to come.

I hear you targetrasp. And you make some good valid points. And I also find myself agreeing with you. I am not sure what Nintendo needs to do to pull themselves out of the red zone. They do seem to be on a slippery slope. Their next system does need to offer some power comparable to the other guys, plus a standard controller, which would be nice. I could really get into that.

And I would love to see them bring back a Metroid like "the Other M." That is an awesome game that I need to finish.

I really did not get into the Wii or Wii U; The New Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, and Tekken Tag: Wii U Edition were the only games on those system(s) that caught my attention. Even a third-party game on all of the major consoles can be made uniquely Nintendo with a few exclusive details!

My parents still play the GameCube. I still break out the SNES and DS lite once in a while.

I think that Nintendo is still a valid brand, but it seems that they target a new audience while the gamers who grew up on Nintendo have mostly moved to PSX and XBOX variations. From what I recall, the Wii sold remarkably well due to the Wii Fit franchise. That appeals to a wide audience, but not necessarily hardcore gamers.

The wii capitalized on a motion control fad that grabbed the market share of casual gamers and made millions of new gamers (think guitar hero but on an infinitely more massive scale) and the lion share of those either got their motion control fill and have moved on to other fads or have converted to tablets / smart phones.

Nintendo definitely is still a valid brand and this has happened before circa 1990 when the SNES was still a year away, the Genny was out in the US touting "genesis does what nintendon't" and Nintendo was propping themselves up on the Gameboy (eerily similar to now?).

The difference (and why I'm concerned) is that the major competition this go around are deeply seated (sony and MS both have 2 successful systems under their belts) neither nec nor sega had much of a success (focusing solely on the home consoles) until their 16 bit offering, and Nintendo's biggest problem in 1990 was market saturation. 1 in 3 (29 million at the time) homes in the united states had a Nintendo, and they'd been riding a winning streak. (just to add perspective the ps4 world wide is at 18.5 million and the wii u is approx. half that). Nintendo has posted a lost since fiscal year 2011, and have just since posted a positive 3rd quarter earnings (fiscal year 2014) thanks to ssbm and Mario kart 8 and a half way decent holiday season.

I can understand the closing of Nintendo power simply because the death of print media seems eminent but shutting down a loyalty program... Everything has loyalty programs. Hotels, grocery stores, hardware stores, game stores, department stores, electronic stores, heck almost everything has some sort of loyalty program attached. Nintendo seemed to pioneer that in the game world and I think was doing a great job. Sony and MS has some freebies for having their paid services but Nintendo rewarded people for just purchasing Nintendo products.

And yes, Nintendo says they're going to launch a new loyalty program but what possible gain could come from completely shutting down the current one? A hiatus perhaps, or at least make the coins transferrable but instead they're opting for a complete retooling, why put off what most likely is the most solid of a company's customer base? I could even understand making the coins expire (which is a trend a lot of loyalty programs have adopted or abolished as their needs saw fit) but in the history of retail I cant find an instance of a company completely nixing a loyalty program to make way for a new one.

I think you guys are looking a little to much into this. The current system requires Nintendo to print all these little pieces of paper into every game. I wouldn't put it past them to create a new system that they feel will save them money.

They also don't release numbers so we don't really know how many people actually took advantage of the rewards. I know I didn't. The rewards just never appealed to me. To many trinkets that would just gather dust in my home. So that's a printed code wasted.

As far as how Nintendo is doing in general, NOA seems to be the most tone deaf to their customers. They've screwed up all the latest limited releases and opened up a huge second hand market. Rather than Nintendo making money, scalpers are earning much more. This has turned off so many people.

Reggie needs to step down first in order for NOA to start becoming successful again. There's so many Japanese games that I'm sure would've appealed to US gamers but just don't get the green light. That's what made Nintendo a household name in the first place. They'd rather just release the same old franchises because people keep buying them.

There were only a hand full of games that I found the motion control interesting. The rest of the time I longed for the traditional controller throughout the game. I found it irritating to be in the middle of gaming only to find the need to stop and shake, twirl, slap, or bounce the game pad. In those ways I find the Game Cube and all previous consoles more appealing.

The rewards were also used for digital downloads of games. I downloaded games to my Wii with the reward program. Right now I am trying to decide on the best use of my remaining coins. I will use them on digital download of games to my 3DS. So it is not necessarily cheap trinkets gathering dust, unless that is the way you wanted to spend your rewards.
I am not sure, but I think there could be another way besides the piece of paper. There could be the need to go online with the game and just register it, simple button press on the touch screen, to your membership.

And with millions of members, you would think they would make the coins transferable instead of taking a chance in upsetting a percentage of the loyal fan base. (However many of those millions that were using the rewards.)

I agree on Japan having many games that need a US release. There have been many games that I would have liked to import, but I do not know Japanese.

retro junkie said:

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I agree on Japan having many games that need a US release. There have been many games that I would have liked to import, but I do not know Japanese.

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I thought Nintendo was the least among the trespassers when it came down to this until about the GBA era when I started trying to collect the NES classic games. It seemed like we were getting a quarter of the games that Japan got and all but like one or two were titles previously released in the US. Then I started looking about and realized we were missing a lot of quality games.

CreepinDeth said:

I think you guys are looking a little to much into this....

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I hope so. I speculate because out of all the game companies of past and present, Nintendo is the only one I am emotionally invested it. Sure I'd love to see NEC or SNK bring a new console to market (hopes that have long since been dashed but I can still dream) and I'll admit I was a bit saddened at Sega's decision to get out of consoles and would ride the mega nerd bandwagon if Atari brought something worthwhile back to the table but the rise and fall of any of those guys meant little compared to my emotional attachment to Nintendo. If anyone is familiar with the south it's kinda like how every "pop" or "soda" is either coke or pepsi, (you don't say " want a soda, or gimme a pop, it's coke please, i'll have a pepsi) Nintendo was the generic term for a video game. In middle school my girlfriend would come over and mom would say "hes in his room playing Nintendo (and it'd be playstation) or now I come home and ask the sitter where my kid is "he's in the back playing Nintendo (it could be an xbox or a Nintendo). As I get older the list of things that brought (and continue to bring) joy in my life thins out (favorite cars turn to crap, friends move or marry your ex, relationships sour, fads change, and basically you outgrow everything. So far video gaming has transcended that (with Nintendo being my first and the name that's had a place in my entertainment center since 1986) there's a large emotional attachment (probably bordering an unhealthy one)!

I received my "official" email this weekend informing me of the demise of Club Nintendo. The deadlines of each stage was laid out in detail. Now I just need to make the decision of what games I want to download onto my 3DS.

don't waste your coin on the kid Icarus uprising. it looked promising but the controls are awkward and you fingers hurt within minutes. I'm extremely happy with all my other purchases (anything on the 3ds that was originally nes or Gameboy). I'd already got the 16 bit goodies from previous rewards.... speaking of, if you missed earthbound now is a great opportunity to jump on for peanuts vs. what the original cart goes for.

Been thinking about the original gameboy games.