My Nintendo rewards program will soon offer free Switch games

By Gabe Gurwin February 8, 2018

my nintendo free switch games march review photos pdx 531 — Nate Barrett/Digital Trends

Up until now, Nintendo’s My Nintendo rewards program gave members the ability to redeem points for free digital Wii U and 3DS games. The Switch was oddly omitted from these rewards, but that’s changing in March.

Starting early in March, My Nintendo members will be able to spend their Gold points on digital Nintendo Switch games and downloadable content both on the Nintendo Switch eShop and through Nintendo’s website.

Gold points are awarded to your account for buying games on all Nintendo systems, with the points equal to 5 percent of the purchase price for a particular digital game. Physical games will only earn 1 percent of their eShop purchase price, likely as a way to keep users from purchasing a pile of used games just to enter their codes.

If you buy a digital Nintendo Switch game at full price, you should get 60 Gold My Nintendo points for it. These can currently be spent on 3DS and Wii U games, and 50 points is enough to purchase Mighty Switch Force! for 3DS (despite the name) or Year Walk for Wii U, among other games. Special digital themes for the 3DS games also be purchased for a lower price, including one from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Any points you earn will expire after 12 months, so make sure you don’t let them go to waste.

Adding Switch games to the My Nintendo program should help soften the blow dealt since Club Nintendo was discontinued. Nintendo’s previous rewards program was widely seen as superior, with the coins users earned eligible to purchase products like shirts, playing cards, posters, DS cases, and tote bags. Those who earned enough coins to reach “Elite Status” were even gifted games for the NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64.

My Nintendo gives users the ability to earn points for completing certain “missions” in games and smartphone applications. These can then be used for discounts in eligible games. A collection of 930 Platinum coins is enough to knock 40 percent off the price of Mario Kart 7, for instance, while 310 can be used to get Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for half off on Wii U.

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Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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