Nintendo’s US CEO Reggie Fils-Aime has spoken out about possibility of some developers behind the company’s 3DS games to deliver apps and downloadable content at a cost to gamers. Nintendo has previously issued free updates for its handheld system and does not seem keen to begin charging its faithful for addition services and benefits, but is reluctantly open to allowing it from its devs.
Nintendo has been criticised somewhat for its old school mentality in regards to joining the digital age – Mr. Iwata himself vehemently shunning the possibility of his company becoming involved in the increasingly popular trend of smartphone gaming. DLC at a cost could be seen as an extension of this trend, but speaking at an AOL conference Reggie suggests that the company will be considerate of the gaming market for digital content, saying “We’re interested in it to the extent that it makes sense to the consumer.” – “The customer is always right” is the phrase that comes to mind.
The Nintendo 3DS is due its next (free) software update in the next few months and the fix will also open up the market to the games developers who Nintendo will reluctantly allow free-range to sell whatever wares suit the needs of their gamers. Be it add-ons for existing games or new games entirely – both for free or at a price.
Nintendo is in the belief that a gaming experience should be complete when a game is bought. Meaning what you take home is the whole game and anything obtained online is purely an extension and should be offered gratis. With this in mind, the gaming giant will continue to offer only free add-ons for its natively developed games such as Mario Kart 7. So we should maybe expect items in the way of bonuses and booster items for vehicles.
As for third party devs, Fils-Aime continues “In terms of how it (the update) will work, it’s up to the developer whether they want to make it to buy new levels, new items – all of that is up to their imagination. Essentially, what we’re doing is creating the framework for those transactions to happen.”
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