Nintendo of Europe relaunches with Wii Points exchange!

What about Australians??? What the heck are star points?

so you need 2000 stars just to be able to download a NES game? i don't know how easily these stars are to come by because i never bothered with them before but that does seem pretty expensive.

I still can't get to the main site... It still says they'll be back soon... What other stuff can we get with points there ?

You get star points for registering European Wii, DS, GBA and GC games and systems. The amount of stars depends on the product.

do you get points with ALL games?
there was no card in my copy of tomb raider!

2000 stars. Thats 10 DS games under these new rules.

So for 10 DS games I can get a free NES ROM. Bit of a kick in the balls.

Wonder if the new value system comes into play as due to the point expirations rules I have several games slips stockpiled.

No, just Nintendo published games. Mario, Zelda, etc. generally all have stars, every other exclusive big game should also have them (Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, etc.)

Link's not working for me. Nor the main English page at NoE at http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/

Is Starwolf_UK actually complaining about free points?
We have nothing like this in the USA!

Going to wiipointscard.nintendo-europe.com doesn't bring up anything for me. And the main NOE website is the same as it's been the last couple of weeks.

So what else is in the catalogue?

Catalogue's currently got Mario Kart figures, a Club Nintendo game/book rack, a Zelda statue, a DS accessoire bag, a DS game slip/stylus slip set and some other things.

The NoE sites seem to randomly not load for some people, yeah, keep at it!

Yes! I've been waiting for this for so long. Anything decent on the old site disappeared as soon as it was available, so I've had over 8000 stars saved since the Gamecube days. I just redeemed for 2000 Wii points, so at least 2 games for absolutely nothing Sweeeet...

Ripp-Off
sorry but it just is a Ripp-off

30miljoen bucks and still there not givin back -_-

i'm really thinking about mailing Nintendo -_-

The Link Statue and Wii bag have sold out already

The site is getting hammered bad now. Think the Wii points site has been taken down.

I bought the Mario game rack in the end and I hope for more Club Nintendo Japan stuff to come along in the future.

For the Americans out there. Think about the things you get that we Europeans don't. Such as games coming out when they should rather than months later (sometimes with no explaination*) and if your Nintendo product goes wrong you have excelent customer service to help you rather than mediocre customer service (which is improving, slowly).

*-Metroid Prime Pinball (a UK developed game) came out about a year after the original set date (which was still months after America or Japan)

That's great, the 1:4 ratio is a bit lame, but i'd rather have 1 N64 game than 16 ringtones or wallpapers. And like others have said on here.... all the good stuff sells out so quickly.

sounds awesome! too bad it not even working at the mo! =(

As much Europe screws over the Wii owners with ridiculously delayed retail games; they get the better releases and promo's with the VC side.

I think that a 4:1 ratio is pretty bad.
it's free stuff so it's okay anyway, but I don't think a 3:1 ratio would've kill anyone...
I'm not sure what I'll do...
if only would be easier to get the items from the star catalogue, I'd get the Wii bag today...

um......one N64 game....for the price of / star equivalent of.....4 Wii's...ouch....or 8 Ds...me no like this cost. I expect that not star points will be lost if not spent in a year it Wii points may be the only option rather than loose them (I'm not holding my breath for Famicon Wii controllers or decent exclusive games)

oh well

For those living in Europe in a Country not supported by Starpoints or something similar (Like Switzerland) just change to the country you registered your Club Account, Accept WiiConnect24 Contract, open Shopchannel, Accept and enter Account Information.
After Linking, just visit the appropriate site and language, purchase points.
Now you may change your settings on your Wii back to your original Country, and shop.
This does not work for Australian and New Zealand residents.

Is it true that NoE plans to reset the star points?

I bought 1000 Wii points, I had 3k of points saved up and have 930 left, hmm this is great, ratio is lame but I got a free N64 game so hey!

Any sign of this coming to America? And how do you register your games anyway?

I don't know why some people are moaning about this. Christ, it's not like anyone buys games just to get points is it? Just enjoy getting something for free for a change.

Just Purchased The Mario Rack, Looks good (had 4700 points saved for a rainy, or in this case, nintendo day! i think that the points should be at a 2:1 ratio, that way we'd get more free stuff! but this is nintendo, they do like to be stingy!

On a positive note, its only 17 days till a nintendo Filled Christmas!!

I don't get why they have limits on the wii points cards. I can't buy any 500 or 1000 cards as they've sold out. I also can't buy ten 100 point cards as they have a 2 card limit. This is a virtual product we're talking about!

Maybe they have to generate more codes or something but when I go into the shop channel to tell Paper Mario this he will not be happy

Woot, free VC games for all

Dont know about these points but at least when i tried to buy a ringtone it didnt allow me to do it because there was no finland there.

@Ashfury : Check your account on the main nintendo europe sites, it should tell you how many of your stars are due to expire. It's worth looking, I found that 3/4 of mine were going to expire at the end of December.

@Flusquil. Which is why there is so much stuff not currently sold out? I know on the German catalogue the Yoshi and Luigi Mario kart toys were sold out on Friday but are in stock now.

@Ashfury. Kind of. Stars have expiration...after they are registered (note the cards themselves don't expire like Japans system) under the new terms and conditions you did sign up to (if you didn't sign up to them you have no account). The account details tell you how many stars will be deleted at the end of the month.

@Aaron. America has its own system. MyNintendo. Occasionally registering a game nets you a free gift (though more often then not you get nothing). For example Brain Training 2 got you a styluss pack, Big Brain Acedemy (Wii) got a Wii remote keyring and Zelda Phantom Hourglass got a feather styluss.

Also you used to have something like register 3 games and get 3 free issues of Nintendo Power plus an optional $12 yearly subscription. And similar for Zelda Collectors edition.

Is it just me, or is this a bit strange?

Ninty say there are no 1000 wii points cards available for purchase with the stars... but how do you run out of numbers?

:S

Every Day we get 5 Stars from Nintendo so its not Expensive, I think. And you dont buy 8 DS for one N64 Game! The Crads are free in the Games!

Don't know if anyone else noticed this, but registering a Wii console gives 1000 Stars, then registering Wii Sports - which came free with the console obviously - gives *another* 1000 Stars. Weird... but good!

Since the site update i have also noticed that you now only get 200 stars when you register a game and not the 250 you used to get. Seems that Nintendo are cutting down on on the amount of stars they are giving out. I also think that you no longer get the 5 stars a day for logging on to the site.

Wii Points card are all sold out in the German shop

Take that, USA!!!
Europeans finally have sumthing that the yankees don't have ^^

I can't believe people are moaning that this is a rip off! Its games for free, how is that in any way a rip off? At least now the star points are actually worth collecting and spending instead of stockpiling them in your account because there was nothing to get apart from crappy ring-tones and wallpapers.

The fact that the points cards go out of stock is a bit crap though, how can a virtual item be 'out of stock'?

stop complaining about the points price!
So you'd rather have nothing than a free game? you don't have to take it.

Well, I'd prefer a golden Link Statue rather than buying 4 N64 Games

Anyone have any idea when they 're-stock' the virtual cards?!

Got points from stars today.

Well said Golbez - this is free stuff we're talking about here!

It's not that we're complaining about the free stuff, I'm all for it. It's just, for buying 8 wii games, I can get a free nes game. Since an average wii game=£40 rrp, 8*40=£320, and a nes game on the VC is = £3.50. We just feel that for spending that much money we would like more back then barely over 1% of what we spent. We obviously know we're not gonna get great deals, but even 4 wii games (£160) = a nes game would be so much better, and it ain't like the VC costs nintendo much: It's them hawking out their back catalogue and making an insane amount of profit.

Why is everyone complaining? Its free. Do Sony or Microsoft do anything similar? Sure its a pain waiting on cards coming into stock and being limited to just 2 a day but at the end of the day its something for nothing!

P.S. I think new stock of cards are available just after 09:00 a.m. G.M.T.

Like last time; We in Sweden wont get anything out of this. Our distributors Bergsala AB (who actually introduced Nintendo for real in Europe back in the 80's with G&W) will look through this once more.

But I sure do hope I'm wrong.

Other ways of getting Stars: I believe you get a handful just for visiting the site. So you don't have to spend money to get Stars.

Why do not games bought in Norway/Sweden contain a point card?
Are we not part of Europe? I have bought SMG, MP3, MP8 etc. But there are no points to be found :/

Shame, im ready to cash in my stars for pokemon snap on friday!

the site is always down so I can't exchange my stars it's not fair !!!

Sad situation BF-Medic, hope you just don't know what to look for.
Look among all the papers that come with the game.
There should be the manual (obviously), a Nintendo advertising sheet (all white) and...
a sheet that generally has the cover artwork depicted on one side, while on the other side there's written stuff that refer to the Nintendo Club Stars (in a lot of languages) and a SILVER coloured piece of tape attached to it.
Scratch the silver thing with a coin, the code for the stars is under there.

@BF-Medic: The Stars are only available in a few selected countries (Germany, France, Italy and UK, as far as I know). If you're not living in one of these countries, there won't be any Stars with your games. Just the manual and advertising.

Also, if you buy a game in one of the above countries and want to redeem your stars, you will have to change your Wii's region setting (afaik).

This is getting ridiculous. I logged in to see ">200 of the 500 points cards available", thanking my lucky stars I caught them when they were put on there. 10 minutes of "now loading" and nothing happens. Then it times out, and the cards are all out of stock...

It's mad. They put them up so early so only the dedicated can get them.

Just Typical! - I managed to download a couple of 100 points card this morning, just went on the site again and there were some 300 points cards available....d'oh! - I'd already used my 2 downloads for the day!

Is this supposed to be a trade off for Rock Band in 2007? lol

I can't believe that people are actually complaining about the stars to points ratio. Come on people - the games etc that come with stars you would have bought anyway - fact. The stars included cost no extra - fact. You collect the stars and exchange them for free Wii points - fact. Before this change what did you get for stars? Wallpaper that could just as easily be downloaded by putting 'Nintendo Wallpaper' into Google.
/waves fist at youngsters who don't know they have been born

I see the cards seem more readily available today - but they've changed their minds and are now only allowing one download per day!

Oh my i have 4000 stars waiting to be cashed in, so i can add either sonic 2 or mario kart 64 to my collection and i just never get to see a page without 0 card avalible.. not fair..

It's sunday evening, and there suddenly seems to be a lot of cards up for grabs (if you could get more than one a day, though!).

I don't understand this, why does everybody else keep finding them but it's always empty when I go on?!
I've been spending over a week trying to get 800 Wii points off there!

It's times like this I hate Nintendo...

Does anyone know the restock times for the website becuase im trying to buy 500 points and there always out of stock

GRRRR.... its been 2 weeks and i log on to the point card site at least twice a day and i still havent been able to buy any cards at all. this is getting very frustrating.

When do they restock