Says it's not in the business of selling half-finished product 'like social games'.
Nintendo has been facing tough questions after disappointing financials and the failure of its 3DS launch.
But it's not about to change its fundamentals. To that end, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata insists that his company will not publish games unfinished and requiring further purchases to enjoy in full.
In announcing the Wii U’s digital distribution service, called the Nintendo Network, Iwata suggested it was inaccurate to compare the firm's online policy to “the ones used for social games”.
“Nintendo, as a software maker, does not plan to [run a business] where our consumers cannot know in advance which [product] will appear as the result of their payment,” Iwata said.
“As a software maker, Nintendo believes that its packaged software should be sold to our consumers in a form so that the consumers will know in advance that they can enjoy playing the software they purchased just as it is.”
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Iwata cited some of the horror stories with free-to-play games where consumers purchase numerous virtual items and add-on content to enjoy the full experience.
Titles such as Capcom’s Smurfs’ Village have come under fire for making it easy for young people to buy expensive virtual items within the game.
“They have to repeat the payments and, before they know it, they end up spending a huge amount of money in order to obtain the items they originally wanted to purchase,” Iwata said.
However, the firm will still make available extra content where it can enhance the existing gameplay experience.
Iwata said: “We believe that our consumers will be able to feel more secure if we offer our add-on content as an additional structure in which those who love the game will be able to enjoy it in a deeper way for a prolonged play time.”
Hence Wii U will come equipped with NFC to enable the transfer of gaming data and possibly micropayments.
Nintendo formally revealed its plans for the Nintendo Network at CES. The service could make fully downloadable Nintendo games available for the first time.
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1 comment
Happy to see Nintendo trying something innovative that no other console gaming company has attempted. Implementing NFC technology into the new Wii U is a great way to encourage play of Nintendo games via mobile as well.
Glen Suh
www.tapit.com
Glen Suh Jan 31st 2012 at 2:07AM
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