Club Nintendo Goes Live! (Though it is Quite Buggy)

[Aethix 129]

Club Nintendo, the customer loyalty rewards program previously exclusive to Japan and Europe, has finally been launched in North America; unfortunately, the site has so many problems that it is practically inaccessible.

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According to various third-party sources, Club Nintendo was brought online yesterday, with almost no fanfare and no official announcement from Nintendo. I, like so many others I imagine, excitedly rushed to my computer first thing in the morning to start cashing in my coins. I was able to transfer my My Nintendo account with little difficulty. The first thing I noticed was that I had absolutely no coins, despite the fact that I had previously registered many games on My Nintendo. It knew I had registered the games, as it had a full list of them, it simply did not count them towards my coin total. Later, I attempted to register a game that I had not previously done. Unfortunately, the site locked up when I attempted to submit the PIN number, and would not let me in anytime after that. Later still, thinking that the problem was simply high web traffic, I attempted to log in again, only for it to reject my user name/password as invalid. Other problems include dead links (leading to a page titled "Whoops") and failure to add coins for registrations and survey completions. Many other gaming sites have reported similar dificulties, including random log outs among others.

So far, the prize list is very alluring. At the top of the stack, is the Nintendo DS Game & Watch collection. Also included are a Nintendo DS game card case, Mario-themed, Hanafuda cards, (Hanafuda cards were the first product manufactured by Nintendo, so that is a nice bit of memorabilia) poker cards based off of Mario Party and Animal Crossing, and a Wiimote holder. Full list of prizes may be able to be found here, if the link works. So far, there has been no word from Nintendo on Club Nintendo or the problems surrounding it.

~Update: If you haven't earned coins for games registered in your My Nintendo account, then you can take surveys for many of them to earn the full 30 coins.

~Update: Things seem to be working much more smoothly now, with fewer lock-ups and faster load times.

Edited 18 Dec 2008 by Aethix (see edit history)