Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has stated that paid downloadable content will come to both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Nintendo most likely won’t offer paid downloadable content but no doubt third-party developers for both systems will. What’s your opinion on DLC?
One investor asked Iwata about his thoughts on paid download content. Nintendo is currently preparing a paid item transaction system for both 3DS and Wii U, Iwata revealed. For 3DS, this will be available to developers by the end of the year.
Nintendo may not end up using this system for itself, though. Later in his response, Iwata said that while pursuing paid download content opportunities would likely increase short term profits, it would not allow them to build along term relationship with customers. Therefor, Nintendo feels that it should not have this type of paid charge system for its own content.
Iwata denied that he is critical in general of the concept of paid downloads. He did, however, question the concept of free-to-play games, where you start playing the game for free and are charged for item purchases. He feels that this type of system would damage the premium value Nintendo’s content.
On the topic of digital downloads in general, Iwata noted that the 3DS internet connection rate is far beyond that of the DS. However, it’s still not at the one hundred percent satisfaction level, and furthermore, only a fraction of those people actually download paid content. He hopes that over the next three years, Nintendo will make the Nintendo e-Shop, the online shop that’s accessible from the 3DS, into a larger presence. He wants this to amount to a more drastic change than something like increasing ten percent from the current five present. Additionally, Iwata said he has a great desire to create a future where players will pay for digital content just like normal with no reservations. This will be a major point for Nintendo over the next three years, said Iwata.
