Nintendo open to free-to-play model

Nintendo is interested in the idea of the free-to-play business model for its products, company boss Satoru Iwata has claimed.

The free-to-play model has been generating a lot of discussion recently, with employees from companies such as EA and Crytek saying it’s the way forward.

Iwata said that there are now numerous ways to pay for a product and if free-to-play suited a new Nintendo IP then it would be considered.

"We [as an industry] can now do distribution by digital means as well as micro-transactions, and the ways to obtain money through supporting entertainment have increased," he told Japanese paper Nikkei (translated by NeoGAF).

"For new titles with no established base, if, in the process of development, we found it to suit the free-to-play model, we might follow that route, or we might do something like 'cheap-to-play'.

"Our sales methods have been freed up and I have no desire to extinguish that freedom. If we were to release something like that, it is not a betrayal but the birth of an interesting idea through our newfound freedom, that's all. I am not talking about changing how we sell Mario or Pokémon."

Iwata previously stated that sales figures for the new Wii U are 'not bad'.