Europeans to get Wii Points in exchange for loyalty
by Chris Greenhough 
{ Dec 7th 2007 at 4:00PM }
Here in Europe, we have our own version of Japan's Club Nintendo loyalty scheme, with one critical difference: while Japanese gamers are routinely given access to completely rad bonuses, the past few years have thrown up few treats for those in Euroland. Nothing but a natty selection of wallpapers, ringtones, and stationary templates.
Happily, that just changed for the better. From today, European Wii owners will be able to exchange their Star Points for Wii Points, giving themselves access to a whole world of nutritious, retro-flavored goodness, via the Virtual Console.
Four Star Points will apparently be worth one Wii Point, but what does that mean in monetary terms? Well, each Wii game is worth 250 Star Points, the equivalent of 62.5 Wii Points. Hence, buying eight Wii games will net you 500 Wii Points, the cost of a NES game on the Virtual Console.
That's a fair number of Wii games just to download a single NES title, but we still embrace this development whole-heartedly. Some of us have been saving Star Points for years, patiently waiting for the day that Nintendo of Europe would make collecting the things worth our time and effort. Today, we got our reward. Read how to convert your Points at the link below.
[Via Eurogamer]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
James @ Dec 7th 2007 4:31PM
So now America is the *only* region that gets shafted by (a lack of) Club Nintendo?
Thanks, Reggie!
Barjin @ Dec 7th 2007 5:05PM
What about your earlier release dates? cheaper games? I'd much rather have that. That being said I am still going to convert all my points into wii points
Good_Bytes @ Dec 7th 2007 5:17PM
@Barjin, Japan has first hand games, and game exclusives.
The grass on the other side of the fence is not all that nice and green on the other side of the fence.
RupeeClock @ Dec 7th 2007 5:35PM
I tried checking out the site, but it was performing terribly, simply registering a product seemed impossible and I couldn't navigate past the first page of the stars catalogue, bah.
Smoke @ Dec 7th 2007 6:39PM
That's quite odd, considering it's working perfectly for me. And there's finally some good stuff in there now.
RupeeClock @ Dec 7th 2007 6:44PM
It turns out the site is just poorly designed and does not like me using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Windows Vista.
I DETEST using Internet Explorer, but damn that Yoshi Key Ring looked good.
Smoke @ Dec 8th 2007 1:20PM
It's weird that it works correctly in Firefox 3 beta 1 on OSX then. I haven't tried it in Safari yet though.
GreenYoshi @ Dec 7th 2007 7:30PM
I had to convert 4000 stars to 1000 points just for the sake of waiting this long!
I'm sorry, but even though the stars to points feature is good, i'm more in love with the Stars Catalogue right now. It was worth the upgrade soooo much.....
...so much that i've spent over 9000 points just today, haha.
Sonic_13 @ Dec 7th 2007 9:15PM
You also get Star Points just for visiting the site once a day, so buying games isn't the only way to accumulate them.
I've accumulated over 1600 points that way despite the fact I live here in the US. I started when I first heard of this Stars-for-Wii-Points program.
I just hope there is some way for me to link my Wii temporarily to the UK Virtual Console and cash in.
Sully @ Dec 9th 2007 5:03AM
Have they stopped doing this? I also visit the site once a day to get the points, but the last 3 days since the new site has opened my balance hasn't changed. This morning I tried logging out and logging back in to see if that made a difference, but I'm still stuck on 8105 (with 1000 expiring at the end of December 2007).
Sonic_13 @ Dec 9th 2007 3:49PM
You may be right. I haven't gotten any more points for visiting the site in the last few days either. Also, when I checked out the Support / FAQ on how to earn stars, it no longer mentioned visiting the site as a method of earning them.
Hopefully it is something that they just haven't implemented in the new site and will start again soon, but they probably removed it as a way of deterring international visitors from scoring free Wii points.
Unfortunately I only have 1645 points, which would only get me 400 Wii Points (if it is even possible to cash in). I may have to just spend them on some Wallpapers. Fortunately, though, I have no points expiring this months so I can afford to wait a little bit.
Sonic_13 @ Dec 7th 2007 9:19PM
Wow, I just checked out the Stars Catalogue. I don't remember them having so much cool stuff before. I thought they just had wallpapers and stuff, but now they have sweet stuff like rings and that Mario Game Rack is just awesome!
Unfortunately, as I previously stated, since I live in the US I can't get that stuff. Wii Points will be the only thing I might be able to cash in my stars for (but that's not a bad thing!)