It seems Nintendo haven't forgotten about their frankly unsatisfying Nintendo VIP service available in Europe just yet!

When you connect your Wii to the Virtual Console for the first time it asks you if you wish to "link" your account to the Nintendo VIP service that started in Europe when the GameCube came out. You put in your email address and password, and, providing it is valid, it links the two.

However, there does not currently appear to be a use. Whether this changes when the Wii officially comes out Friday, remains to be seen. Hopefully it will result in the otherwise largely useless 'stars' you collect being usable to redeem against games from the Virtual Console. We'll update you as we know more.

In other Virtual Console news you can, as previously mention, purchase points with either a Wii Points Card, or a credit card (currently only Visa and MasterCard are accepted). You can buy points in three denominations; �6.99 for 1000 points, �21 for 3000 or �35 for 5000. The system will allow you to have a maximum of 10000 points at a time, but with the small selection thus far, it’s unlikely that you will need all those.

Update

We've been asked by several people just to clear things up; the Wii comes with 250 stars, and Wii Sports has the same amount. While this initially seems low it works out the same as the 500 you received with the GameCube. They just split it between the two for whatever reason.