3DS Games to Receive Paid DLC
By Kyle Mann | December 26, 2011 | News | No comments | Share
Nintendo’s long been a bastion of the one-time purchase game sales model, refusing to sell add-ons, expansions, or bits of DLC for its games. But that’s all about to change, as the Japanese games company has decided to begin releasing DLC for its 3DS games starting this spring.
According to a report in Japan’s Nikkei, Nintendo will drop the first bit of paid DLC for the 3DS release of Fire Emblem in March of next year. Set to sell for “several hundred yen”, there are no details as of yet as to what type of content, levels, or items to expect. Still, Nintendo has in the past been consistently vocally opposed to paid unlocks or content that makes the customer feel as if he didn’t purchase the complete experience upfront:
We're interested in it to the extent that it makes sense to the consumer...But what we're unwilling to sell is a piece of a game upfront and, if you will, force a consumer to buy more later...I think the consumer wants to get, for their money, a complete experience, and then we have opportunities to provide more on top of that.Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America
So don’t expect to pay $10 for an all-powerful unit to help you plow through some of Fire Emblem‘s tougher missions; instead, we’d presume Nintendo will focus on expansion-style extensions of the game’s story. Nikkei’s report also indicates that Ninty’s upcoming console, the Wii U, will come with an infrastructure to support paid DLC as well. It’s nice to see Nintendo catching up with current distribution models; just don’t try to sell us any shiny aesthetic armor upgrades for our Pokemon, mkay?
