Rewarding Loyalty, Nintendo Style

So, Nintendo have finally given people with a way to convert their star points into wii points to spend on the virtual console. Great, free games! Only there's a catch: there's a limit on how many points can be converted by one person in a day. Not that that's going to be a problem for anyone, because they've also put an artificial limit on how many people can convert points over a certain (unspecified) time period, and they've already sold out.

I can't imagine any possible reason why they'd want to do this - it's not like it would be devaluing the wii store when you look at what they're actually giving away for your stars.

Let me explain. Having registered two consoles and 9 nintendo games, I don't have enough star points for one decent virtual console game. Well, I guess it's free, so can I really complain? Hell yes.

The conversion rate is 1 point for every 4 stars. At 250 stars for every game, that's 62.5 points for every game. Virtual console games start at 500 points.

To get their cheapest NES VC games, you have to buy and register 8 nintendo games - that's a £3.50 reward for every £320 you spend. For an N64 game you need to buy 16 games, spending £640.

Bear in mind that these games are from their back catalogue, that they bring in no direct revenue, and that they cost virtually nothing to distribute. The only loss they make on them is potential VC sales, but surely that's more of a loss leader anyway; get people using the VC for free, then release quality old content faster than new, as they've been doing all year.

This is worse than no free points at all - instead of losing sales, they lose good will. I don't feel rewarded, I feel cheated.

Lip service to loyalty.

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