What do you think about Club Nintendo? (whether you are a member there or not, doesn't matter)

Personally, I dislike the facts that:

1) The prizes offered there are not worth it.
2) Distribution of prizes is restricted to the US, Canada, South America, and few other countries.

As a member of the US CN I do have a few gripes.

1. Prizes suck. Japan gets awesome things like soundtracks, controllers, DS games, and their end of year prize for platinum members is a working replica of a Game and Watch. Europe also gets some soundtracks, random items (Mario Kart car sunshade, Pikmin plush, shirts), and they can even swap for Wii/DS points. What do we get? Mostly stuff printed on paper.

2. When it started they didn't give out points to those who were already members of Nintendo and had registered items for GBA/GCN, you can still see all these items that you previously registered on your lists. The last thing Nintendo is having is money problems so it would have been nice if they gave out bonus points to those fans who have purchased their items when they were losing the console race.

3. Points expire after two years. None of the prizes they are offering at the moment really interest me so I want to save my points for when something I do want when it is released. The only problem is the points expire so if you don't see anything within those two years you want, you are pretty much forced to get something or risk losing the points. Knowing my luck right after those points expire Nintendo will release something awesome and I won't be able to afford it.

Now I do realize that these are free items you get in addition to the game you already spent your money on, but for a company this big, I think they can handle this better.

Yep, us Europeans get some funky stuff. I hated the old Club Nintendo, which only ever offered mobile ringtones and wallpapers. Now, for 15k stars, you can get a gold Link and Epona statue
Also, there are some GBA games, wind-up Mario Kart toys, Super Mario Galaxy soundtracks, keyrings, socks (WTF), bags, stickers etc. Granted, the site was down for over HALF A YEAR, but it's awesome now!

Edit: Just checked again. There are now towels, Animal Crossing soundtracks, Pokémon t-shirts, Pokémon Platinum beach balls, umbrellas (I think they were running out of ideas...), boxing gloves, and an uber special Pokemon Platinum Giratina DS lite (for 30,000 stars though >.<)
I wish I had more stars, some of this stuff is awesome! Can you peeps get some sort of credit from Virtual Console/WiiWare games?

In Canada we get things like,a game and watch DS game for 800 coins (its fun),legend of zelda 3 poster series (800 coins),A fabric basket that is called a wii controler holder (300 coins),DS lite case white (400 coins),stylus set (600 coins),nintendo ds game rack(600 coins),hanafuda cards (800 coins) the average amount of coins you get per game you buy is 30-40 coins but wii fit was 80 coins and thats the most i've gotten before. I own the link posters and the game + watch game. I have a platinum status (actually it should be WAY more than platinum status because I have 1310 coins).

The Japanese are WAY more into video game soundtracks then the average American gamer, so I doubt that full video game soundtracks are coming soon.

But yeah, the American Club Nintendo awards 'n stuff are really lame.

I actually thought our prizes in canada aren't that bad.

What kind of things do you guy south of me get? (I live in Canada so USA)

Tingle's Balloon Fight. That is all I have to say.

We did get a kickawesome Mario Cap though. Despite the fact you're not supposed to wear it, you can wear it. Which is awesome.

Yeah we got that too. Actually I joined a week after they gave it out so I didn't get one (good thing I don't like .....mario)

When I heard that soundtracks were Club Nintendo rewards (not knowing that they were Japan only), I signed up, saw the rewards, and then proceeded not to actually register anything out of sheer apathy. I'm still waiting for a halfway decent reward besides G&W.

I'm kinda interested in joining. There was a little bit of card about it along with the manual and loads of other Nintendo advertising carp in the fully boxed and, essentially, brand new NES I got recently. Comparing it to the bit of paper about Club Nintendo I got in the box of (I think) Paper Mario TTYD makes me laugh! One is a plain white piece of paper with some lines to put your name and details on, and a small cartoony picture or Mario. One... Isn't.... ^_^