During a recent meeting with investors, Nintendo revealed the details of their new loyalty rewards program. The service, called My Nintendo, borrows ideas implemented in Club Nintendo and the achievement systems on Xbox Live and PSN. It is unclear if My Nintendo has a list of achievements for each user. All they’ve said is that it will be combined with Nintendo’s new account system.
Instead of coins, My Nintendo introduces points. The point system has two different tiers, gold, and platinum. Gold points are earned by making purchases on the eshop and the points can be redeemed in the form of discounts on software in the eshop.
Platinum points are earned by logging on to the Nintendo smartphone apps and the eshop. The platinum points can be exchanged for small things, such as items that can be used in certain games or wallpapers for the 3DS. The platinum points seem to expand on the concept of free to play games in the fact you can trade hard-earned collectibles for in-game items or power-ups.
Another milestone is that Nintendo strives to have 100 million sign-ups after My Nintendo launches. No announcements regarding incentives to encourage users to sign up have been made. Historically Nintendo has offered small incentives for people to sign up for highly anticipated programs. Hopefully, details about Nintendo’s intentions will be made closer to the launch in March.
My Nintendo has the potential to encourage hardcore gamers to cross over. While the idea of getting a discount because of repeated loyalty sounds enticing, but is it enough? Will Nintendo finally be in the same category as Sony and Microsoft, or will they fall short again? Would love to hear what you think. Sound off in the comments below about how you feel, is this new system is going to hurt or help Nintendo.
