Reggie: Making our front page 70% happier since 2009

Downloadable content is a double-edged sword: when used right, it enhances and expands your game experience, but when done wrong you wind up paying more to unlock something that's on the disc or cartridge you bought in the first place. The recent announcement that Nintendo will provide DLC on 3DS next year led some to worry it'd follow the latter path, but Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has spoken to assure consumers that's not the case.

In an interview with Games.com, Fils-Aime spoke of the company's approach to providing post-launch content for its games:

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 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.

Fils-Aime could also have been talking about the increasing trend towards free-to-play games, though the company has said in the past it's not interested in free-to-play software.

Do you agree with Nintendo's standpoint that the original game should be as complete as possible or would you like to see some franchises — Animal Crossing, for example — taking a slightly different business model?

[source blog.games.com]