Up until now those "Stars" that you get with any Nintendo purchase have mostly been valid in exchange for the kind of tat you’d expect to get for free anyway – wallpapers, skins, screensavers and the like. Okay, so there are the natty ringtones and the very occasional game/hardware giveaway to brighten the proceedings too, but the point here is that the whole Stars catalogue thing is generally not worth the faff of digging two pence out of your pocket to scrape the foil of the back of the scratchcard.

At least that was our opinion until we first tried to log into the Wii Shopping channel and were asked if we wanted to link our account to the one that’s been lying completely dormant on nintendo-europe.com. The advantages of doing so, the website went on to explain, would be “additional benefits in the near future.” But if the prospect of Wii-related screensavers, wallpapers, skins etc is making your eyes roll in anticipation, fear not, for it seems that Nintendo has finally come up with a practical, indeed, desireable use for those pesky Stars.

Put simply, you’ll soon be able to trade your Stars for the one thing you’re definitely going to want – Wii Points! These babies, as you’re most likely aware, are the currency of the Virtual Console, meaning that in a roundabout way you’ll be able to exchange Stars for Virtual Console games and anything else you can buy at the Wii Shop (we’re guessing wallpapers, screensavers, skins etc...). What’s more you’ll even get Star Points for your Virtual Console purchases! Is this not cool?

We reckon so, and we’d be a great deal more excited about it too were it not for the border/slowdown issues plaguing the Virtual Console content itself. But let’s not look this gift-horse in its slightly blighted gob...

Alas this neat new benefit is unlikely to kick off before Xmas – Nintendo is still ‘working on it’ is what our man on the inside tells us. We sincerely doubt that one star will net you one Wii Point either. We’ll be sure to let you know when, how and, most importantly, how much as soon as possible, though.