Club Nintendo Closing Down

Club Nintendo, the loyalty program that launched in 2007 and supplied free gifts to owners of the Nintendo DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U, is to close down in September.

Nintendo says it is "working hard to create a new program," which is expected to launch later in the year. No further details were disclosed, aside from Nintendo's pledge that those who sign up to the new program will receive a free copy of Flipnote Studio 3D for the 3DS.

Existing Club Nintendo members have until September 30 to spend their remaining currency of Stars. After this cut-off date, all remaining Stars will be deleted.

By the end of April, new games from Nintendo will no longer come with reward points. A full discontinuation schedule, written by Nintendo, can be found below.

The New Nintendo 3DS, which will launch across North America and Europe on February 13, will not come with Club Nintendo reward points.

Launched in 2007, Club Nintendo has been offering loyal customers a range of gifts to claim in exchange for points accumulated. Prizes range from apparel to wallpapers, mobile ringtones, soundtracks and toys. The program has more than six million members, Nintendo said.

In a notice published on the Nintendo website, the company added: "There are plenty of unique and exclusive items already available in the Stars Catalogue, and we’ll keep adding more over the coming months, so there’s plenty to spend your Stars on before September 30th 2015."

Club Nintendo Discontinuation Schedule

April 1st 2015: 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.

April 20th 2015: 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.

September 30th 2015: 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.