The My Nintendo loyalty program is pretty good, right? If you head on over to the rewards section of the service right now, you’ll find a host of interesting goodies to claim should you possess the required number of coins. These include a Nintendo Switch Online 2025 Calendar, a set of Super Mario Bros. embossed art prints, a Mario vs. Donkey Kong smartphone ring, and a Mario & Luigi: Brothership pin set. That’s… good, isn’t it?
Yes, it’s good, but it’s not great. And by gum, if you’ve been a fan of Nintendo for a while now, then you’ll know that My Nintendo’s predecessor, Club Nintendo, was often great. In operation from 2002 (region-depending) until 2015, Club Nintendo offered up some of the most incredible, one-of-a-kind products imaginable. A golden Twilight Princess statue, a SNES controller for the Wii, a Year of Luigi coin, multiple CD soundtracks... It really felt like the sky was the limit for Club Nintendo, and we’re saddened that My Nintendo will likely never match its brilliance.
Rather than just sit around and mope about it, however, we decided to check out An Unendorsed Anthology of Club Nintendo from Oscar Bown, revealed via Kickstarter in August 2024 and available exclusively via his eBay store. Clocking in at 400 pages on premium 170gsm archival paper, this is without a doubt the final word on Club Nintendo rewards, containing high-quality images of every product offered to members from its inception in 2002 right up to its closure in 2015.
Now, we were sent the limited edition (£44) of the book, but you can also opt for a standard copy for £33. Throwing down the extra cash will bag you not only the hardback book, but also a 2025 calendar (complete with key game anniversaries for each month), three custom postcards, and a rather lovely golden coin pin.
Considering some of the bog-standard art books you could pick up for around the same price, An Unendorsed Anthology of Club Nintendo absolutely screams luxury. It’s a thick, weighty tome with stunningly high-quality pages, a classy, minimal design, and not a whiff of poor image quality for the products themselves. Everything from the ‘Club Nintendo GameCube pad’ to the final ‘Club Nintendo 2016 Calendar’ has been meticulously presented with exceptional care.
Do we wish the book had included a few more bespoke photos of the products from Bown? Sure, a part of us does. But then we have to remind ourselves of the book's purpose, and that’s to simply preserve each and every reward from Club Nintendo in as straightforward a way as possible.
In that sense, it’s a resounding success. Every reward is granted its own page in the book (with a handful benefiting from a full two-page spread), and Bown has even gone so far as to include the region in which each reward could be obtained along with the required price in coins (a whopping 15,000 for that aforementioned Zelda statue).
Frankly, it’s a remarkable book for Nintendo fans. Considering Club Nintendo has been dead for nigh on a decade now, owning a complete catalogue of every reward from the loyalty program in 2024 is an almost priceless privilege.
That’s not to mention the bonus goodies included in the limited edition, either. The 2025 calendar is certainly basic in some ways – for example, there’s nowhere to make any significant notes or reminders – but for something to simply prop up in the corner of your office desk, it’s really quite lovely. The three postcards depict illustrations of the original ‘phat’ DS, the 2DS, and the GBA Micro, and the soft-feel quality of the card itself is second to none. Finally, the golden coin pin measures roughly 3cm in diameter, making it a fairly chunky little thing; perfect for pinning to your favourite winter coat or travel bag.
If you, like us, miss Club Nintendo dearly, then Oscar Bown’s hardback anthology of the service’s many, many rewards is the perfect way to pay tribute to a bygone era in Nintendo’s long, storied history. Flicking through and locating any rewards that you might have grabbed yourself in the past is fun enough as it is, but having a complete view of every reward from every region over the course of thirteen years is an excellent reminder of Nintendo’s unique flair for weird and wonderful products that we desperately wish we owned.
Thank you to Oscar Bown for sending over a copy of An Unendorsed Anthology of Club Nintendo. The book is available to purchase now. You can check out Bown's official website for more of his design works.
Let us know down below what Club Nintendo purchases you made back in the day.
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
Comments 19
I really like this book and I want to support it. Hopefully a much cheaper option for shipping to the US becomes available.
This looks a lovely book. May have to consider looking into getting it.
I still have some Club Nintendo items from back in the day. I have a SNES pro controller for the Wii, a Club Nintendo games rack shaped like the logo, a Mario Kart Wii lanyard, a Club Nintendo branded plushy question mark block that makes sounds, Mario Kart 8 CD, Animal Crossing CD, Kirby Triple Deluxe CD, Smash Bros CD, Zelda Ocarina of Time CD, Mario branded Hanafuda cards, StarFox Assault poster and I'm sure I have a couple of other items too, but can't remember from the top of my head. I did have a Club Nintendo branded hat, but I lost that one.
Had there been the option to get this digitally I would've got it myself (skipped it physically because of shipping of course - now that I got know about it being also on eBay I checked there and yep, shipping is a whopping £23.40) but anyway, nice to see an article about it and I hope those who got or are going to get it will enjoy it!
This is so cool! I'll check it out for sure.
I only caught the tail end of Club Nintendo, but I really wish I'd gotten into it earlier. The merch was a step up from what we get with the current rewards program. Still, I'm glad there's at least a record of all that cool stuff out there.
Who remembers when it was called the Stars Catalogue in Europe and every time you registered a game, they'd give you a bunch of cool downloadable extras like wallpapers, and even sometimes a printable iron-on t-shirt design?
Also, that's where I bought my DS. I believe it was £100 + 1000 stars, delivered before it came out in the shops. Amazing.
A book of images you can find online isn't something I find appealing. The soundtracks don't appear to show the back of the item, or even a written transcription of the tracklist. Hard pass
I vastly regret never finding out about club nintendo; had at least 12 1st-party wii and ds games for it that I never entered any codes for...
As a HUGE Club Nintendo supporter… I love this book. I went through thinking there’s no way he’s going to have ALL the items (the Russian DSi sock for instance) but yep, he passed my test.
As Ollie said though… I would’ve liked a few more pictures of particular items. (Where’s the cool box the US Mario Statue of the Platinum rewards came in?) (maybe some pics of the “Tenbillion” outside its box)
It could have a larger description of some items and a mention of the year end rewards for greater loyalty meant (gold vs platinum)
It’s definitely high end and sits proudly on my shelf
I was able to grab an original Golden Wii Classic Controller Pro for my birthday this year, a guy in my country had one, pristine new, box never opened, and the box is, obviously in Japanese, and it has that fun little "Club Nintendo" logo there. Great way of keeping a piece of collection with me. Hell of a controller, by the way.
@Edu23XWiiU and they're usable on the NES/SNES Classic systems! I have this golden controller as well!
Loved club nintendo. Used to buy codes for cheap off ebay and have enough to get the big end of year stuff like poster sets.
I enjoyed Club Nintendo. For a while there you could pick up unused codes from eBay. Cheap, too. Got a lot of great rewards that way. I live in the US and the physical rewards were always more impressive in Japan. It was Club Nintendo that taught me Nintendo will always favor Japan
Does the book mention the End of Year Basic, Silver and Gold rewards?
Getting "free" DS/WiiU games was awesome!
I miss Club Nintendo. To me, the change from CN, to My Nintendo is one of a number of representations of how Nintendo has gone from being a gaming company for the consumers, to more a flat out business in it much more for the money than before.
I only got a handful of the rewards initially. But I did eventually get to splurge on goodies at the very end.
Another unfortunate thing is that it took far longer for Club Nintendo to reach here in the US.
@montrayjak Yeeeah, Nintendo thought on the people that acquired the Classic controllers for the Wii, when they made the controller ports for the classic consoles hehehe. Amazing controller!
Each game used to come with what, 100 points? So you needed to buy 150 original games for the freaking statue? I’m sick of people singing the praises of the old Club when the fact is that their prices in points were outrageous. You needed to buy like 20 games before you could get a keyring. With the new system, every single reward is accessible to anybody, and for silver points that you get for free. So what’s to complain about?!
Look they had nicer things than now. But for me, even though i buy quite a few games, the best ones were unattainable. Amd the best rewards were often limited to Japan. And I was saving up stars to convert to wii pointa, and then came they blie of the exchange rate 4;1. And old points/stars beve threatend. The end of CN wasn't nice at all.
Mynintendo has less great rewards. But it least you can easily get some fun things.
Back when it was called NintendoVIP the postage was free and the points never expired, these days it's hard to save enough points for anything good due to their expiry time and when you do get something you still have to pay the shipping costs.
The quality of the items also seems to have dropped significantly over the years, I'm still using this keyring from sometime around 2004:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lYEE3IRxC3SOFE_PpGBOCRX7RaX_Vnkp/view?usp=drivesdk
Iirc it cost 5,000 stars (with free shipping).
I seems to be made from stainless steel or a similar metal, doesn't feel or sound tin-y when struck.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...