Nintendo’s never really got into the whole downloadable content thing, and there’s a reason behind that according to Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo overlord and master of all things Mario.
Reggie, who’s head of Nintendo of America, recently sat down for an interview with AOL Games, and in that interview he had a lot to say about DLC that costs the player, outlining that Nintendo generally only plans to offer DLC when it is deemed worthy, and it will usually be free of charge.
“We’re interested in it to the extent that it makes sense to the consumer,” he said.
“I’ve had this conversation with a number of our key developers, and their mentality is, ‘Reggie, when we sell a game, we want the consumer to feel that they’ve had a complete experience.’
“Now, in addition, if we want to make other things available, great, and we’ll look at that. But we’re unwilling to sell a piece of a game upfront and, if you will, force a consumer to buy more later.
“That’s what they don’t want to do, and I completely agree. 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.”
Personally I feel as if this approach is a good one – DLC can be worth it if its lengthy and worth the price, but I still haven’t forgiven Bethesda for Horse Armour just yet. Indeed, sometimes I feel as if some DLC should have been in the game already (for example the massive collection of different Batman costumes that came with pre-ordering Arkham City), but alas we live in the age of downloadable content that’s easily accessible. Good on you, Nintendo!
This approach, unfortunately, only refers to Nintendo’s in-house games, as the 3DS itself is soon to get a platform for DLC releases.With these releases, it will be up to the discretion of the developer to decide if they want to follow Nintendo’s approach or charge for the content.
Dan Curtis is one of ManaTank’s founding members. He’s from England, currently at the tender age of 22 and loves nothing more than writing about, playing and doing stupid commentaries about videogames. In his spare time Dan can usually be found obsessing over ManaTank, playing games until his eyes bleed and eating lots of biscuits.
I wish more company's felt like this, I dislike feeling like I've brought 3/4 of a game.