Nintendo's Iwata has 'no intention of denying the free-to-play model'

Finally, Nintendo has come around to the fact that, yes, this is indeed the 21st century. Jokes aside, company president Satoru Iwata candidly mentioned to Japanese news outlet Nikkei that Nintendo is interested in trying the free-to-play business model employed by a growing number of games across all platforms, Gamasutra reports.

Iwata told Nikkei, translated by NeoGAF, that he admits to the fact that free-to-play has changed the landscape, but both the ways in which companies make money and create quality games therein "require creativity." "Therefore, I have no intention of denying the free-to-play model," Iwata said. "If we were to talk about if Nintendo were to do that, however, I am not so much inclined to do that with Nintendo's established well-known products, where people trust their interesting-ness."

That said, don't expect any of Nintendo's established franchises (e.g. your Marios and Zeldas) to go free-to-play anytime soon. Nintendo's interest in free-to-play seems exclusive to creating new intellectual property tailored to that business model. "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'," Iwata said. He later stressed that, "I am not talking about changing how we sell Mario or Pokemon."

Keep in mind, this is a 100 percent about-face for Iwata from his stance on free-to-play gaming just a year and a half ago. (And that free-to-play is already possible on the Wii U.) Who knows what the first free-to-play game from Nintendo will look like, but this editor can almost guarantee that it will be quite different from what we know as "free-to-play" today.

Are you psyched to learn that Nintendo is finally interested in free-to-play? What will the first free-to-play game from Nintendo look like? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.