Nintendo kills off Club Nintendo

The official Nintendo rewards program, Club Nintendo, that provided points, freebies and extras to those that purchased physical and digital games through its services, is officially ending its life this year.

Announced in an official blog post by the Japanese game maker, Nintendo said it would be killing off Club Nintendo by September 2015 and would be replacing it with an entirely new rewards program. It didn’t explain what that new system would be or why it was needed to entirely replace the current system, but we did get a timeline of Club Nintendo’s shutdown.

By April 1st this year, Nintendo will no longer include codes in packaged physical games. Any remaining games with codes in them will still be able to be registered however.

On the April 20 no more digital downloads will come with Club Nintendo rewards or codes. Surveys for downloaded titles will no longer be available, as well as any other minor Club Nintendo features.

September 30th will see the end of the Club Nintendo program in its entirety. No one from this point will be able to access any of it, including signing up for new accounts.

It is at this point that Nintendo plans to launch its new service and will be offering a free download code of the 3DS game, Flipnote Studio 3D, for anyone that signs up to it in the first few days.

Nintendo urges anyone with remaining Club Nintendo Stars to trade them in for items before the final cut off date.