Gaming History 101

Club Nintendo Europe I feel has always been the worst of the three available. Its a mash up of the worst things from the American version and the Japanese version. To this day I have struggled to decided between the catalogue of gimmicky crap like wrapping paper, key rings, or cash in your stars for Wii points. Yes that’s the original Wii not the Wii U or 3DS. But all that has changed and just in the nick of time Nintendo because as we all know Club Nintendo is finally coming to end in all territories. You can now finally exchange those hard earned stars for actual downloadable games on the Wii U and 3DS.

Though this is awesome and something that took far too long to be implemented we have a pretty mixed bag of games. On the WiiU the highlights include a lot of GBA games like the amazing Metroid Fusion, Fire Emblem, and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga. There are a couple of other virtual console titles like Mario Kart and Link to the Past. The 3DS also has a few
titles and even some NES games like Punch-Out!!. Its just a shame that this came on so late in the game we should have had this ages ago Nintendo. It also still feels a bit naff as some of the games are commanding a exchange of up to 3900 stars which to put that in prospective you get 250 stars per retail game you buy and 50 stars per download title. I guess we can’t complain, at least we are getting something, who knows maybe well see some more titles added before September. In Europe you can redeem stars up until 20th April and then you have until September to redeem them.

Much like Nintendo finally jumping on smart phone games this feels like another example of Nintendo being late to the party. Hopefully with all this stuff coming to a end we will be able to share the same reward program as the rest of the world.

America has a far superior Club Nintendo system who have been enjoying redeemable download games for some time. It’s not just Nintendo Sony has better online stores in Japan and America compared to Europe with more classic titles being available. Why they don’t just make all these classic games available to everyone I don’t know. At least with Sony its dead easy to set up a American or Japanese account to enjoy their online services. Its not so easy with Nintendo.