3DS to have DLC purchases by end of year; WiiU to follow

[mr_pikachu]

During Friday's Nintendo Tokyo earnings briefing, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata told reporters that downloadable content (DLC) would be available to third-party developers for the 3DS by the end of the year, and that DLC would also be available for the upcoming WiiU. Nintendo itself plans to make sparing use of the DLC option, although Iwata stressed that he is unwilling to risk harming Nintendo's relationships with its customers. According to a translation by Anoop Gantayat of Andriasang,

[Iwata] and Shigeru Miyamoto are interested in the possibility of extending the life of games through added stages and other features that players want. However, Iwata believes that pursuing certain types of low quality paid download content opportunities -- things like unlocking keys or stat increases -- would, while likely increasing short term profits, not not allow them to build along term relationship with customers.

Longtime Pokémon fans may recall hidden areas with legendary Pokémon in many recent games; such areas could only be accessed using tickets obtained at Nintendo events. If such opportunities are deemed "added stages" rather than "unlocking keys," then in the future those tickets might be sold or otherwise distributed via DLC instead of given at special events.

[Jeff]

Sounds like this will only be adding content that was not included on the card or disk in the first place, as opposed to some companies that put extra content on the disk and then charge you to unlock it.

The unlockable stuff in Pokemon games has always been included on the games, so I doubt that would be payed DLC.

[mr_pikachu]

I hope you're right, Jeff. Now, I wouldn't mind if they made it free DLC -- although it might take away from how special such things were, I suppose -- but if you have to pay extra for the opportunity to "catch 'em all," as it were, then I do think Nintendo would be risking its relationship with fans.