(Don’t get us wrong. We like many EA games. But when it comes to DLC, let’s be honest here…)
Look, it’s not a secret. Some publishers, despite their awesome games, have earned a bit of a negative reputation when it comes to DLC or paid add-on content. In fact, we at NintendoFire.com expressed a bit of concern when we heard that Nintendo was looking to do this route, due to that very fact.
But it appears that our concerns have been alleviated, at least for now. In an interview with Kotaku, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata assured fans that Nintendo doesn’t intend to hold back when it comes to creating games—and thus won’t exploit fans’ appetites through DLC releases.
Iwata stressed that Nintendo doesn’t want to make gamers “feel that they have been cheated or deceived” by the paid add-on content, and so will be sure that they don’t hold back on releasing a complete game—rather than creating the game and holding back pieces with the intention of releasing them later:
“I think, when the player has exhausted what’s in an existing piece of software, when there are no more challenges and there is nothing more they can do, if we then introduce a new level or a new character—something new for them—we just increased their motivation to want to go back; we’ve also increased the amount of time they’re going to enjoy that software. And one thing Nintendo has determined as a company policy, what we are not going to do is create a full game and then say, ‘let’s hold this back for DLC.’ That’s not our plan. We’re definitely not doing that. It’s an extreme example, but I think there are examples of games where you get that initial purchase—the very core part of the game—and everything else around it is all DLC. However, if you do that I believe customers will have no motivation to go out and buy the retail package to begin with.”
The first game from Nintendo to offer DLC will be new Coin Rush levels for New Super Mario Bros. 2.
