Of course it's free. You don't pay to get Club Nintendo. You're rewarded for buying games, and giving feed back. You don't by games because you want Club Nintendo points. You buy a game and think "gee, now I can redeem some club Nintendo points." With PS Plus, you're deliberately and intentionally subcribing to a service with money. You pay for PS Plus every year because you want online and discounted games and such.

With Club Nintendo, you do no such thing. You create a free Club Nintendo account with expectation that you will get more milage from the purchase you already made. It absolutely is free.

Because nobody buys Nintendo games because of the Club Nintendo program right?

You see right there, that's the reason why Club Nintendo is useless and fails in every way. You think PS owners are pissed off at PS Plus? Not any of my friends, I can tell you that. 

Thank you, that's why Club Nintendo sucks! 

Personally, I'd rather pay 50 bucks then fill in 50 boring enquetes. My time is worth more then such a measly amount of money. And those enquetes are incredibly boring and obnoxious. 

Club Nintendo in Europe is not even worth wasting your time on considering you get nothing. I seriously can't buy a single thing on it because the point system is ridiculously high! I can't get a product that's worth €5 after spending over €1000! That's sad! 

Sony gave over $1000 of "free" stuff on PS Plus this year.

That's pretty far off from my experience...though I can only speak for North America. My first year joining, I got Majora's Mask for free, which I still hadn't played at the time, and a Link to the Past, Paper Mario, and Picross followed within the next few months. I've probably gotten at least 10 games for free since I joined three years ago, which is why I don't really complain about the service, since all the points I accumulated were from games I would have purchased anyway.

Outside of digital games, the physical rewards tend to be more collector's type items, like controllers, game cases, posters, etc. Not really anything I care much about, but I would assume there's value there for collectors.

You also get a reward at the end of the year if you reached a certain number of points...which really isn't too hard from my experience. My first year I got a poster set, second year a Zelda OST CD, third year a year-old 3DS game. 

All in all...it could be much better...but it's definitely not bad for a complimentary service. 

Club Nintendo doesn't suck. The rewards do.

Yes you do... No one ever bought a game based on club Nintendo awards... People buy the games soo that they can play the games

Oh lawdy, this was a good read for a while but it stopped getting interesting once a disgusting anti consumer tactic was mentioned and lawded as being better than a free service.

Seriously marketing can brainwash people real bad that they don't realise it's had an adverse effect on them.

I buy Nintendo games and I'll be blunt, I don't give a care about what they give out for free because it's not something I need desperately in my life, I just buy and play the games I want and that's it, the last thing I want is another company's anti consumer service to replace a free service and lock certain games behind a pyawall, seriously that can fuck right off.

Funny thing was I bought Link between worlds this summer and the game released last Nov, I managed to buy it for half the price brand new and to boot I used research on where I was going to buy a copy meaning I knew exactly where to buy it cheaper than my regular GAME store.

While Nintendo's general pricing method is getting a bit old it certainly doesn't stop me from biding my time with playing other games and finding other areas around Europe to find what I want cheaply, I do the same for almost anything I want and can afford, why buy my Revoltech Evangelion figures from Amazon where they are more expensive (and mostly bootlegged at that) when I could use a Japanese provider who not only delivers to my area but also makes it cheaper to buy, why is common research such an unheard of concept to people that complain?, yes it would be nice if Nintendo lwoered some of their prices but their games are still in demand for some and even then you can find them cheaper in other areas of the world if you took some time out of your life to look.

That's kind of the problem though, isn't it? 

Why is Nintendo wasting money on Club Nintendo when they could create a program that generates them more money and gives their loyal customers some extra love? Win-win situation. 

This is a non-issue. Club Nintendo is not a payed subscription. It's just something you can sign up for and register games you probably would have bought anyways, in return for free rewards.

Are all the rewards amazing? No. Not at all. But hey, I've gotten ALBW posters, a couple VC games, and through the program I got Wii Party U free for buying MK8 and Game & Wario free for being a Platinum member. I would've bought the games I registered anyways, but now I have some free merchandise and additional games. I'm happy.

Yes, Sony is so anti-consumerist, that's why it outsells Nintendo ten to one. You can do all the research you want, you won't find cheap Nintendo games where I live. 

I have never watched a Sony advertisement in my life. I did my research on PS Plus and saw that it provided more content than it costs. Such brainwashing! Such anti-consumerism.

In the mean time Nintendo gets praised for selling 8 year old games for €50. That right there can seriously fuck off!