Announcement of My Nintendo Gold Point Discontinuation 18/02/2025
Thank you very much for your continued support of our products.
On March 25th, 2025, the ability to earn Gold Points will end. Gold Points already earned can still be used on Nintendo eShop to receive a discount, even after this end date.
We sincerely thank you for using the My Nintendo rewards programme, and apologise for any inconvenience. What does this mean for you? Earning Gold Points from digital purchases and download codes
From March 25th, 2025, customers will no longer earn Gold Points when making digital purchases from Nintendo eShop and the official Nintendo website, or by redeeming download codes. Earning Gold Points from pre-orders of digital titles
Pre-orders for digital titles from Nintendo eShop or the official Nintendo website made up to and including March 24th, 2025, will still earn Gold Points regardless of the game’s release date, even if the payment is processed after March 24th. Gold Points earned from such a pre-order will be granted to the customer’s Nintendo Account within 24 hours of a) the payment being processed and b) an email with the subject “Thank you for your Nintendo eShop purchase” being sent to their registered email address.
If the customer cancels such a pre-order before the payment has been processed, or if the payment process doesn’t go through for customer-related reasons (such as insufficient funds or an expired credit card set for payment), Gold Points will not be granted, even if the same title is pre-ordered again or purchased by the customer at a later date.
Please note that pre-orders for digital games placed with My Nintendo Store or external retailers are fulfilled as download codes. As such, and as explained above, these pre-orders will not earn Gold Points from March 25th. Earning Gold Points from physical Nintendo Switch Game Cards
Gold Points can still be earned by registering physical Game Cards from the HOME Menu of a Nintendo Switch console, as long as the title has been released by March 24th, 2025. If a title is released after that date, Gold Points cannot be earned. The original release date of a title is defined by the information shown on Nintendo eShop. Gold Points can be earned from registering a Game Card for a period of two years from a title’s original release date in Europe and South Africa (and for one year in other countries).
Any previous commitment by Nintendo of Europe SE to grant Gold Points outside of the methods described above will still be fulfilled. Additionally, customers may also be granted Gold Points for exceptional reasons at Nintendo’s discretion, even after March 24th, 2025. Spending your existing Gold Points
Gold Points are valid for 12 months from the date of being earned, expiring at the end of a calendar month. Gold Points earned by customers up to and including March 24th can be used to get a discount on Nintendo eShop purchases until they expire, even after the distribution of Gold Points has ended.
Why the fuck is there a new program for each console?! Just do one program and make it console agnostic ffuuuuukkkkk……
This is obviously a move to drive adoption of Switch 2, and discourage any further purchases on the original.
Nintendo don’t want you still earning points on Switch 1 when you should have gone out and bought Switch 2 already!
And they ESPECIALLY don’t want you using all the points you already earned to get “free” content on the BRAND NEW Switch 2 that you should be PAYING for!
Typical anti-consumer move from Nintendo.
My take on this is that gold points was a method to drive digital purchases over physical media.
Nintendo gets all the revenue and don’t have to share with retailers, also digital is a lot cheaper then physical media to produce and distribute.
Now in 2025 digital numbers are so high that they no longer feel the incentive is worth it’s cost.
Also I would personally reserve the term “anti-consumer” for other more sinister things then removing a free perk or bonus… Nintendo have lots of practices that fall under this term, I don’t feel this is one.
Especially since they are giving quite a lot of room for you to spend whatever gold points you have on your account. Anti consumer would be outright refusing to cash in the point right away.
Some fair points, thanks.
I would agree with you that the simple discontinuance of a loyalty scheme isn’t in itself anti-consumer, sometimes these things just come to a close.
But choosing to can this right in the lead-up to Switch 2 certainly makes it feel like that timing is no coincidence, and has everything to do with the release of the new console.
Yes switch2 definitely is the trigger for what ever evaluation internally at Nintendo causing this.
I guess they didn’t want to keep the plan for the whole Switch 2 generation, so decided to shut it down before it launch, rather than at some random time during the generation. Cause I am assuming it will be the same store for both Switch and Switch 2 (that is, the app and interface may be different, but it would be same store behind the scene, and on nintendo website)
This program dates back to the 3DS and WiiU.
before that they got rid of club Nintendo which was a way better reward program
IIRC, it did change at some point around when the Switch came out. I seem to recall gold points being available from physical games forever, and not expiring. But maybe that was in the DS days…
Oh, that’s sad. I enjoyed saving my gold coins then using them to buy a game without spending anything else.
Still, it was just something extra, so happy for the time we had it.
Link is dead?
