Last week, Nintendo announced the worldwide discontinuation of their Club Nintendo rewards program. The news came as a shock to everyone, as Nintendo never hinted at any desire to change or shut down the program. In hindsight, the writing may have been on the wall far longer than we would like to admit, given the dwindling availability of physical reward options and the declining appeal of Elite Status rewards.

Perhaps more importantly, it was announced that Club Nintendo would be replaced by a new customer loyalty program in the near future. While Nintendo did not offer any new details about the upcoming program in Tuesday’s announcement, they may have outlined their new plan to reward loyal customers one year ago from Friday, when company president Satoru Iwata spoke at their Corporate Management Policy Briefing.

Rethinking the System

Nintendo recognized the changing landscape between consumers and content delivery. They realized that, despite their previous attempts at integrated play between their console and handheld offerings and their ability to make each new platform backwards compatible with their respective predecessors, there was a disconnect between different devices for both Nintendo and the consumer. Nintendo was still creating device-based ecosystems, while the world was shifting to account-based ecosystems.

The introduction of Nintendo Network IDs (NNIDs) in 2012 on the Wii U was the first step in changing Nintendo’s relationship with consumers. The Nintendo 3DS was then retrofitted in 2013 with the ability to connect to those same NNIDs. Miiverse, a previously Wii U-exclusive community, then became the first of hopefully many ways in which those NNIDs could be used for Nintendo and their customers to connect via desktop computers and mobile devices. Nintendo was intent on creating an account-/consumer-based platform that would outlive an individual piece of Nintendo hardware and create long-term relationships with their fans.

A Proven Model

Iwata’s ambitious plan to shift the focus of our enjoyment of Nintendo’s software away from any particular hardware device and to a central service that spans a multitude of devices is not unprecedented. Apple, Inc., like Nintendo, boasts a deeply integrated hardware-software model and relies on multiple product lines. Around the turn of the century, they decided that the personal computer would be the central hub for all consumer electronic devices: iPods, cameras, camcorders, PDAs, and more would all plug into and sync with your computer. For the better part of a decade, this was sufficient.

Then the system broke down. Devices evolved the ability to acquire content on their own, and you had to constantly plug all your devices back in to the computer to keep everything in sync. Apple founder and then-CEO Steve Jobs took to the stage at WWDC with a solution: iCloud. This service shifted customers’ digital lives from being device-based to account-based. Regardless of the device used, you could access your universal account and manage your content across all your Apple devices..

Even Sony, with their PlayStation Network, sought to unite their gaming product lines of consoles and handhelds under a unified service that their customers could access, regardless of the device they used.

Nintendo wants a unified account system to make things easier for their consumers and for themselves. Such a system would make it easier to manage multiples games across multiple systems. It would make upgrading from one system to the next much simpler. It also creates several possibilities, which we’ll get to in a little bit.

An Instantly Rewarding Ecosystem

The decision to overhaul Nintendo’s digital management system raised the possibility of radically altering their software distribution methods and pricing model. At the moment, all new Nintendo games come with a suggested retail price. Retailer sales aside, that price doesn’t change for someone buying only one Nintendo game per year versus a loyal customer buying a dozen games that year. Iwata sees an opportunity there:

“Based on our account system, if we can offer flexible price points to consumers who meet certain conditions, we can create a situation where these consumers can enjoy our software at cheaper price points when they purchase more.”

Buy more, pay less. That’s one of the ways they want to reward their most loyal fans for their continued business.

It doesn’t stop there, though. You might not necessarily buy a ton of different games over the course of a year, but you might play certain games often and want to invite your friends to join in. With the ease of digital distribution, such an invite system helps to introduce Nintendo’s games (and their software partners’ games) to new customers, who in turn may introduce it to even more friends. This help Nintendo’s sales immensely, and is something for which Nintendo would like to thank and reward you.

Could this be the basis for Nintendo’s new rewards program? Is this why we’re being forced to spend all our hard-earned Club Nintendo coins or stars in the coming weeks so they can shut the old program down? It would certainly make sense. It’s the next logical step in the plan Iwata outlined, after implementing the NNID system on both of Nintendo’s platforms. In fact, Iwata even ended that segment of discussion by stating:

“Nintendo aims to work on this brand-new sales mechanism in the medium term, but we would like to start experimenting with Wii U at an early stage.”

It certainly sounds like something they plan to implement soon.

New Possibilities

While getting discounts for purchasing more Nintendo games in a given timeframe would certainly be a welcome change, Nintendo’s acceleration toward a unified account system opens the door to even more opportunities.

Let’s consider Virtual Console games for a moment. If you purchase Super Mario Bros. on your Nintendo 3DS, it’s only for your Nintendo 3DS. If you want Super Mario Bros. on the Wii U, you’ll have to buy it again. Why? It’s because there are a number of roadblocks. Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Mario Bros. for Wii U are not simply different builds of the same game (as are games on Apple’s App Store, for example). They’re technically different games, on different ecosystems for that matter.

While the hope is that Nintendo’s future handheld and future console will use a unified operating system and sport a single digital marketplace, an account-based rewards program could implement a short-term solution. When you download Super Mario Bros. on a Nintendo 3DS linked to a NNID, the game is automatically registered to your rewards account. What if Nintendo then decided to credit your NNID account with Super Mario Bros. for the Wii U?

Nintendo already announced a similar cross-buy feature for Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars during this month’s Nintendo Direct. If you buy the game on either the Wii U or Nintendo 3DS, you get to download the other version for free. Not only does this establish a precedent for Nintendo, but it starts breaking down a barrier for consumers.

Many longtime gamers are hesitant to embrace digital distribution, especially on Nintendo platforms, because buying a Virtual Console title on the Wii isn’t the same as buying that same game on the Wii U. You could transfer and upgrade it, but for a fee. By embracing the account-based, and thus consumer-based system already employed by Apple and Sony, Nintendo could make it easier for their fans both horizontally and vertically, allowing games to be enjoyed on multiple current Nintendo systems as well as future systems, because the games would be tied to your account instead of to a single device.

Regardless of what Nintendo decides to do with their new rewards platform, we’re in for a change. That change could fundamentally change the way we buy Nintendo games in the future. Does that sound like something you’re ready for? Has change been a long time coming, or could a change of this magnitude be too ahead of its time?