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+--- Thread: Nintendo and DLC (/showthread.php?tid=6788)
Nintendo and DLC - A Black Falcon - 18th November 2014
So, as we all know, Nintendo has now started releasing DLC for its games. I like having addons to games, but paid DLC isn't great. So far Nintendo's been quite nice about it, and even has had quite a bit of free DLC, surprisingly enough, but they'll probably eventually start monetizing it... and from there, it's a short slippery-slope down to on-disc DLC, which is the worst kind by far. I hope that doesn't happen, and again having addons to games is great, it's better than the old days of console games being just a single product and that's it, but paid DLC is often bad for the consumer, and it's an issue for preservation as well, of course -- unless/until you crack the system, that DLC's much harder to preserve than something with a disc is. And if you have account issues maybe you could lose it, etc. I had no problem with free downloads for PC games, but console DLC is so much more controlled, it makes me more worried from a preservation, and pricing, standpoint.
I know, there are plusses and minuses to all this stuff. All we can do right now is hope that Nintendo continues to be so reasonable with their DLC policies, and continues to improve their online network. I mean, with the Wii or DSi, your downloaded games were locked to the system you downloaded them on! That's pretty obviously horrible. Nintendo has improved on that, but I don't know if it's enough yet.
On a DLC note though, free Hyrule Warriors and Mario Kart 8 DLCs are announced and/or released. Link's in MK8 now, and True Midna was just announced for Hyrule Warriors: https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADMUKmKGDgYTg I'm definitely happy to hear that, True Midna is awesome and was the character I most wanted to see in that game!
Nintendo and DLC - Dark Jaguar - 18th November 2014
If you want on-disc DLC, it's called Amiibo. (As for adult Midna, well, I'm only a little surprised she isn't in games more often. I mean she only made a brief appearance in that form at the end of TP, and all she did was say "goodbye" and make some joke about Link's muteness. Meanwhile weird imp kid Midna was with you almost the entire game. Frankly I'm not sure they should have bothered with the subplot about her form being changed. Heck what sort of curse IS that anyway?)
Nintendo, so far, is all over the place with their DLC policies. It seems clear they're experimenting, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. As I've said before, their early DLC in 3DS games was pretty standard fair, tiny little things for tiny little prices that add up if you want the whole set. Mario Kart 8 seemed a clear shift from that, and a welcome one. A fair price for a fair amount of content, and I bought them both because of that. Mario Kart 8 DLC has received no end of praise for both the scope of additional content and the price.
Hyrule Warriors, however, is a bit different. At a higher price, you get nothing more than alternate costumes for the characters. The free weapon was nice, but that doesn't change how poor the DLC of that one is. I might not blame Nintendo entirely for that one though, as it may have been Tecmo at fault there. At least HW does a far better job with female characters than Other M did.
Mewtwo is being offered as a weird one, you've got to get both versions of Smash Bros in order to get that DLC. Now, I was going to do that anyway, but I do feel sorry for those who don't own Wii U's and are thus locked out of this content (if someone owns a Wii U and doesn't own a 3DS, that's weird, but same situation as regards Mewtwo).
Amiibos... I've spoke of them, but to repeat my point I think they (and Disney and Skylanders for that matter) are doing this all wrong. Toys shouldn't just be some stationary "unlock" tool just to get on-disc items in a game. They should work the other way around, the games should interact with the toys on real-world gameboards and other games. The games should serve the toys, but right now the toys just serve the games.
If we're going to talk on-disc DLC though, frankly Nintendo's been doing that before they even went online. I think the transfer pack and the e-reader could be considered Nintendo's earliest attempts at such a thing. In fact, the transfer pack's sole use outside the pokemon series was to unlock content in N64 games by hooking up the Gameboy Color equivalent game (such as Tennis to Tennis to unlock characters, or Perfect Dark to Perfect Dark to unlock cheat codes). No real data transfer was used, it was used purely as a data unlock. Even at the time I thought this was rather lame and hated the idea of being milked out of a game purchase just to unlock content that was already in the game. (At least with Perfect Dark there were alternative ways to get those cheat codes.) e-Reader was a bit more of a mixed bag. With Animal Crossing, it was without a doubt nothing more than an unlock tool, and the worst possible example of one. Nintendo sold e-Reader cards as though they were tradeable Baseball cards, with random allotments in "packs". Let me go on record saying that "random contents", as a sales tactic, should die. I wouldn't mind if the FTC banned that practice outright. There is NO possible justification for it! Being forced to "gamble" on whether or not you bought the thing you intended to buy is the opposite of consumer protection, and these things are, first and foremost, marketed to kids. It's nuts! I'm just glad no online store has come up with "random boxes" of content, with all manner of in-game content only obtainable IN the "random box". Anyway, while Animal Crossing clearly was just unlocking stuff already in the game with these things, Mario Advance 4 actually added new content. The only downside was that they were cards, in randomized packs, so it was very hard to "collect them all" when it came to getting all the new levels.
Oh yes, Nintendo is bringing back e-cards, this time using NFC. I only hope they won't put them in random packs.