Farewell to eShop discounts: Nintendo ends its Gold Points program

One of the best things about trying out the Nintendo Switch eShop was that it allowed you to get close to a plethora of games that used to rotate quite frequently in the platform's offers, sometimes coming at ridiculously low prices, and that's where you could best invest your Nintendo Gold Points to get games for free, or at a significant discount. These Gold Points were earned by returning 5% of your spend on digital goods on the platform or by registering game cartridges to your Nintendo account, and were stored in your digital wallet. But Nintendo has decided to put an end to this service.

From 25 March, your digital purchases will no longer generate Gold Points. You will be able to keep the Gold Points you have already accumulated for up to 12 months from the date you earned them. Gold Points can be earned by registering physical Game Cards from the HOME menu of a Nintendo Switch system, as long as the title was released on 24 March 2025 at the latest. If a title was released after that date, Gold Points cannot be earned.

This is undoubtedly bad news for all users, both for those who were accumulating points to release a Nintendo Switch 2 title and for those who feel they are losing a customer advantage without a replacement from the company.

Still have Gold Points left to spend in the eShop?