Back in 2022, with a little more than a month to go until the planned release of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp on Switch, Nintendo delayed the game indefinitely in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Skip ahead to April 2023 and the game is finally out, though it appears that the delay may have had an unfortunate impact on users' ability to redeem My Nintendo Gold Points. As reported by the Australian website Vooks, an attempt to redeem the points results in an error code that states "You cannot collect My Nintendo points for this software as the expiry date has passed".
In addition to the above, users on Reddit are also claiming that they're unable to redeem their Gold Points due to the expiration period. While most appear to be based in Australia, there are examples in other territories.
Elsewhere, however, one of our own writers attempted to redeem the points and actually succeeded, gaining 80 Gold Points from a physical copy of Advance Wars 1+2.
So what's going on here, exactly? Well, as stated by Nintendo itself via the official support page, Gold Points must be claimed "within two years of the game’s original release date" in Europe and South Africa, however other countries must be redeemed "within one year of the game’s original release date".
It's entirely plausible, then, that certain batches of the physical edition may have been manufactured prior to the original release date back in April 2022, meaning that the year's redemption period has passed. This is, of course, merely speculation on our part and not confirmed at this time.
We'll be undertaking further testing on our end and will provide an update as soon as we're able.
Have you managed to redeem Gold Points from your copy of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-boot Camp? Let us know with a comment below.
[source vooks.net]
Comments (56)
If true, this is actually kind of funny.
On a practical level, it does suck but I guess will just have to wait to see if Nintendo correct this.
It's probably easy enough for Nintendo to fix (Adjust a date in the store database), but... really?
It's a bit of a silly thing to happen, especially since (IMO) the reason for the delay was a bit weak.
I just got my 50 points in the UK
Just started the game and that opening beat starting up is pure joy/nostalgia to me.
What is that for Gold Points ?
Easy fix surely. And I always forget to redeem gold points for physical.
This is absolutely hilarious and really just exemplifies the stupidity of having them expire in the first place in places like EU.
I should know because I live here.
@Anti-Matter gold points are used to buy games on the eshop.
Every €1 spend on the eshop gives 5 points. Every €1 spend on a physical game gives 1 point.
Every point translates to €0,01 on the eshop.
@K1LLEGAL Can’t wait to get home! 😀
Darn. Means it won’t work for me. May go digital.
Kind of a dumb oversight on Nintendo's part though given the physical payout only makes that equivalent to 60 cents at least it's not a huge loss.
@darkswabber
Ah, I see.
I rarely purchase digital stuffs except for ACNH DLC $25, Online service $20, the leftover for under $1 games during sale.
@Anti-Matter if you click on the + button when a physical cartridge is inserted and go to “my Nintendo Rewards Programme” (5th tab) and click on “earn gold points (game card version only)” you get them too.
Nintendo is cheap for having a time limit to redeem the gold points in the first place. As long as it's a new copy of the game, and points haven't been doled out for it already, you should be able to get the points.
@darkswabber how did I not know this!? Just had to log in and look, I've got 635 gold points
Got 50 gold points for redeeming the cart this morning. No issues.
@bransby to be honest…. I can give a reason for that because I was part of the problem. I remember on the WiiU days going into the equivalent to GameStop in my country and just opening the boxes of rental games, taking pictures of the codes, and then redeeming the gold coins when Club Nintendo still existed.
I got Pikmin 3, Game and Wario, and other two good first-party games for free because of those coins 😅
my copy has been delayed till tomorrow 😑
Odd. I feel like it would be everyone or no one.
People gather these things?
I kinda forgot they exist
Mine's just come through the door within the last fifteen minutes and I retreaved the points without any issues
@KBuckley27 I pre-ordered through Best Buy, and now UPS says I won't get it until Monday 😡
Thank you for actually checking, the source article didn't have much info so it's a bit misleading. I was also able to get the points in the UK.
How come your writer managed to get 80 Gold Points? The game costs £49.99, so surely if should be giving out 50 Gold Points?
While I kind of understand why there's an expiration date for gold points on physical items, Europe and South Africa get two years?!
...Cue jealous American. (We only get one year, and it's a pain sometimes....)
I always forget to do this. I should check all purchases i’ve made in the past two years for this.
@ComfyAko I've had over $120 worth of gold coins accumulated from 3ds and wiiu purchases in its last days.
@Kaiffe123 it's $80 dollars in Canada, that's my guess
@Fizza They expire everywhere.
@andyg1412 Ahhhh right, yeah that may well be it!
I assumed the writer was in the UK
as I think Nintendo Life is mainly based in the UK, but I understand that they have writers from other countries as well!
Should be an easy fix in their system by pushing up the expiration date line in the code. Might be something found in a systems update for the Switch under "stability."
Wait, you can get Gold Coin points for physical versions of a game!? I had no idea. Dang it! How long is it until the expiration period is over for a game?
@Fizza They expire in North America as well. It's a Nintendo problem, not a regional one. It's ridiculous that physical are not only worth less, but that they expire in the first place.
Didn't have any issues redeeming them myself this morning here in Italy but yeah, this is weird and I hope they'll fix it as soon as possible for those who had this problem!
@B_Lindz It says it in this part of the article, you must have missed it:
Australian over here, I just tried redeeming the gold coins and I got my 80. I suggest anyone affected try again, if it worked for me I assume it's sorted out now.
I had a similar issue with the physical version of Tetris 99 when I got it on February 2020. I just kept insisiting until I was able to get my Gold Points.
I suggest you keep insisting.
Got my 60 eu points here. Weird that it changes per version
That delay was the stupidest thing ever.
In Canada, just tried to collect my Gold Coins for the game and I've received Error Code 2016-0406 "You cannot earn Ny Nintendo points for this software." - WOW sometimes Nintendo just really doesn't think logically about their decisions. Yeah these carts were likely produced a year ago and now no longer eligible for Gold Coins.
Worked on my EU version there
Didn’t work for me last night and this morning here in the US
I wonder will they release the original advance wars in NSO GBA
My copy got delayed in the mail. Go figure.
I think they've fixed it in North America? At least, I was able to get points for my physical copy today.
@B_Lindz Just so you know, you do get way fewer Gold Points for physical copies. Nintendo really wants you to buy digitally.
For digital copies I think you get 5% of the price in points, but for physical it's a paltry 1%.
@bransby what is insane is that when you buy a physical game and they know whether the points have been redeemed why couldn't they make it so that you could simply download the game from the store when you don't have the cart on you? Like you register the game. And when the game is placed in another system it unties from the old switch and attaches to the new one. That way you don't have to carry around all those carts. Nintendo always makes things more trouble than they need to be.
They should never have an expiry date to begin with. Because digital games don't have an expiry date smh.
@5th313ment Right? How about they expire when they take the eshop down in 5 years or whatever. Of course Nintendo adds some arbitrary catch to one of the few consumer-friendly perks they offer. I swear this company...
I have a list of games i've had problems with, all were tried within a month tops of the day they were released.
TMNT Shredders Revenge
Into The Breach
Crosscode
Eastward
Subnautica -says it can't collect for the region i'm in. Although it's 100% a cart bought here in the US at a major retailer.
I have a list here running on this issue. I guess I'll be adding Advance Wars to it later today.
I always forget you can get gold points for physical cartridges.
Lmao figures
Redeemed mine at 8 pm Central time in the us from my physical copy. Zero issues or errors.
people are just dumb. you can redeem codes only when they are unlocked by Nintendo. which means not before the official release date
@jojobar …Friday was the official release date, and that’s the date people were attempting to redeem.
“people are just dump.”
Someone who spells that intended word as “dump” may want to avoid calling others that. Just saying!
@5th313ment There's so many things they could do that are consumer-friendly and help their brand.
@dskatter it was 7am, i don't speak native english, so sorry for the typo. The gold coins didn't work for me on Thursday either, but it worked on Friday... It helps just being patient...
I got my coins for Advance Wars, yet can't get them for Cult of the Lamb, I get error not available yet.
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