In Europe, we always get screwed over when it comes to gaming and Nintendo is no different really as they'll happily push back release dates, meaning we have to wait until 110 days or more have passed since the rest of the world has already played the game.
Of course, this leaves EU gamers somewhat pissed off, especially with modern games being online as it means US and Japanese gamers can kick our asses in games with any kind of leveling system (because they have more time to level up and practice with game controls) unless it's a PC game as they can often be released in the same month.

Anyway, Nintendo has relaunched their EU site with one notable feature.
When you buy a Nintendo product over here, you get a little registration card with a code on it.
Registering the product gives you star points (about 500 per console and 250 per game) which could previously be used to purchase free merch and sometimes games from Nintendo.
With the recent update, Nintendo will now allow you to trade star points for Wii points which can be used to download VC games and WiiWare such as Opera.
There's a few issues with the site right now though, meaning that a room full of people with Bipolar would probably be more stable than the EU site right now.

FAQ:
Q: When is this coming to America?
A: It's not for America, it's for those of us who are constantly shat on by game developers and publishers.

Q: How do my points arrive?
A: You don't simply trade the points and have them magically appear on your Wii (which would be the logical thing to do), Nintendo actually sends you a points card (thanks Nintendo, you saved the environment!).

Q: What's the exchange rate?
A: The rate for this is 4 star points to 1 Wii point, so you'd need 16 games or 8 consoles to get 1,000 Wii points.
You get 250 star points per game (VC purchases may receive less if any at all) and 500 per console.
I don't know about accessories.

Q: No seriously, when is this happening in America?
A: Go die in a fire!
It's only for Europe as America doesn't have the star points thing (you get games we don't and you get them earlier... Fire Emblem: RD doesn't even have an EU release date unless you believe Wikipedia).

Chances are that I'll get little use out of this myself as there's only a few VC games I might get (Mario 64, Paper Mario, Shining Force and a few others if I can be bothered) and the only bit of commercial WiiWare out is Opera (yeah, so the Wii boots quickly and runs quietly, but my PC does more at the end of the day, and it has better support for things like Flash).
Still, if you're like me and you've bought a few pre-owned Nintendo games that still have the unused registration cards in them, it's still more for you...

Well on the bright side at least I have a use for those 8000 stars I have since there is never anything worthwhile in the stars catalogue ever.

rofl, what

so to counter one terrible thing they give us a completely random other thing?

this is also pretty shit, 16 games to get one free n64 game? whoop-de-doo.

Actually, Nintendo said they would offer this "service" over a year ago.
I agree that the exchange rate is pretty poor (so what, are Wii points like £1 GBP and Star points like $0.50 USD or something?) and to be honest, I've not really been all that interested in Nintendo's online services as they don't even begin to compare to those of Sony and Microsoft (I can tell if it's raining by looking out of the window, I can get the news on TV or online and why in the name of all that is holy would I pay to download software that's free for the PC just so I can surf the net?).

What they should have done is link the registration site with the Wii shop so that points were automatically added when you swap the points.

Why are people complaining.

Is there actually a downside to this?

I don't even own any nintedo products, but if i did, this'd clearly be a good thing.

People are complaining because Nintendo is using this as a way to get around EU gamers being angry at constantly being screwed over by them and other gaming companies.
I know Microsoft fucked up big time with the 360 launch, but at least they tried not to treat EU gamers as third rate gamers.
Nintendo has built a system which rewards EU gamers for buying new games with access to old games, but to be honest, I'm pretty sure most of the people who wanted those old games would rather use an emulator to access them for free.
I for one would rather have some games worth buying first as the Wii doesn't have a strong list of titles unless you like playing games like Mario Party and Endless Ocean, though this still seems to be more than the PS3 which I probably won't bother getting until next year when there's more games, Home and hopefully a price drop.

I still don't understand why Nintendo decided to go with friend codes as they are more annoying than simply saying "My name is XYZ".

Yeah, I never understood why they don't just say "fuck the french" and release the US version in Europe. I mean the french version can come out later, but let the American speaking people of Europe revel in good ol' American gaming! As a reward for being one step closer to America by speaking American.

It's American, and they have no reason not to. Why they don't do it I can't figure out.

I'm not certain, but I think there's actually some sort of EU law that makes this unfeasible.

It's the ntsc to pal conversion that does most of the screwing, and Italy, Germany and France really fuck things up for us.
Most games here in the Netherlands are played in the english language, except for kids games, and we still have to wait
for the rest of the continent. Sucks, really.

I still have a big shitload of starpoints left, so I'm probably going to make use for it, if only because it's free.