Premium DLC Headed to 3DS and Wii U

[Valigarmander]

Premium DLC Headed to 3DS and Wii U

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has revealed the company's plans to provide support for downloadable content not only on Wii U, but on 3DS as well. And while the expansion of its digital market is an important point for Nintendo in the coming years, it doesn't expect it to replace the traditional, packaged games business.

He was asked about the subject of premium downloadable content during a Q&A session in Japan late last week, following the release of Nintendo's financial results for its first fiscal quarter. While he still hasn't changed his mind about the prospect of free-to-play games -- free games which are supported by microtransactions -- he did say that the Wii U and 3DS will support paid DLC, according to a translation by Andriasang. In the handheld's case, that functionality will be available to developers by the end of 2011.

While third parties will presumably be able to make use of the DLC system as they wish, don't expect Nintendo to charge you for a new weapon or stat boost. Both Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto are apparently intrigued by the possibility of extending a game's life by releasing extra levels or whatever else is appropriate for the game in question. They aren't, however, looking to release things like stat boosts -- Iwata said doing so would probably increase their short-term profits, but it wouldn't let them, as Andriasang puts it, "build a long-term relationship with customers."

On the subject of the connectivity rate for 3DSes, Iwata didn't provide any specific figures. It's likely lower than it would have been had the eShop been included with the system at launch -- rather than being added through a firmware update in early June -- but it is already better than that of the DS, which is no surprise. Nintendo wants to make the eShop bigger over time, so one would think those exclusive Game Boy Advance downloads for early 3DS adopters will eventually be sold on the store. Doing that can only encourage more people to get online which, in turn, means more potential DLC customers for Nintendo and third parties.

While there was downloadable content sold during the last generation of consoles, it's really been with this current set of systems that it's become extremely commonplace. This was initially met with a great deal of frustration from gamers; paying for horse armor and cheat codes wasn't what most people had in mind when they picked up their high-definition console. Over time, DLC offerings have generally become less offensive, although that's not to say people don't still have issues with it -- launch DLC has caused gamers to be up in arms and content being sold to players that's already located on the disc has been equally frustrating to many.

It's somewhat reassuring to hear that Nintendo at least sounds like it's focused on the release of quality downloadable content, and not just anything they'll be able to make money on. Many of their games lend themselves to DLC: Mario games could get extra levels, Mario Kart extra tracks or characters, Mario Party extra boards or minigames, etc. What will be interesting to see is how Nintendo ends up pricing this content -- we know it's against free-to-play games and it is generally very slow to drop the price of its first-party games, so will it charge a serious premium for an extra set of Super Mario levels? That's a question we won't have the answer to for some time, as it's given no indication the upcoming Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 will support DLC, although it's possible that could change.

Might be cool.

[Loot]

I must be becoming a senile old man with permanent rose-tinted glasses, I'm just getting irked by all these recent decisions for the video game market.