Fils-Aime: Nintendo devs wary of paid DLC

November 18th, 2011, 11:33 Posted By: wraggster

Nintendo Of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has explained the company's reluctance to sell paid DLC for its games.
Speaking to AOL's games blog, Fils-Aime explained that Nintendodevelopers were wary of selling additional content because they want to give consumers the "complete experience" on day one.
"We're interested in [DLC] to the extent that it makes sense to the consumer," he said. "And it's interesting: 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 what we're unwilling to [do is] sell a piece of 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."
Fils-Aime's comments are enlightening, and do much to explain why3DS did not have DLC mechanisms in place on the day it launched. A system update, due this month in Japan and in the UK in December, will set that right, but it appears Nintendo's belated action has been motivated by thirdparties.
Developers and publishers think of DLC in a markedly different way. Earlier this week Gears Of War 3 developer Rod Fergusson emphasised DLC's importance in combating the second-hand trade, telling Game Informer magazine: "It's not about, 'Oh, we had this map left over'...it's keeping the disc in the tray. In a used game culture that you have to actively fight against, I think DLC is one of the ways that you do that."

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/fils-ai...-wary-paid-dlc

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