I'm a bit sad to report this, but Nintendo has announced that their Club Nintendo rewards program, which offers gifts and incentives for registering games and hardware, will cease to exist as we know it later this year. Any products released after 1/20 can't be redeemed for Club Nintendo coins, so that means the New 3DS XL and the games coming out for it.
3/31 is the last day to earn coins, register products or sign up for Club Nintendo. You'd better redeem all those coins before 11:59PT on 6/30, because that's when the service shuts down for good. If you have the coins, you can still qualify for the Gold (earn 300 coins) or platinum (600 coins) member statuses, and Nintendo will still honor the special rewards conferred on those members.
All is not lost, however. Nintendo promises a better customer reward program will replace Club Nintendo later this year. This is a good thing. I used Club Nintendo for years, and while it was cool it was also far from perfect, with a number of flaws that made it cumbersome to use and counter-intuitive to newcomers.
Our friends at Nintendolife have a thoughtful article on the situation, and some ideas on how Club Nintendo's successor could better reward loyal Nintendo customers.
