Between this and the self-imposed pay-cuts, my respect for Iwata's philosophies are at an all-time high.

Honestly I didn't think the pay cut (for Iwata, at least) was really that much as a true sacrifice as much as something that may have needed to be done and a publicity stunt (not that I don't think it was somewhat of a sacrifice) but I completely agree about highly respecting his philosophies, especially on this subject.

Sounds good to me! I never expected Nintendo to have paid DLC any way. Actually I never expect anything from Nintendo to have DLC at all. It would be nice though, there were times during my Brawl years that I wished they could update certain things in the game that people were exploiting.

I know some people don't like the idea of more characters and added stages to pay for but I am all for it. As long as I don't buy Smash 4 then go home the same night and pay 5 dollars for a few new characters. Give me 6 months to a year after I enjoyed the most out of the games then I would really consider buying DLC.

Given the right kind of game, DLC could be a good fit. Brawl is the right kind of game. So is Mario Kart. Nintendo could be making a tidy profit from DLC in such games as they are only released once every hardware generation.

I have no idea what Iwata has against the F2P+MTX business model (not specifically for Nintendo, but in general).  There's a bunch of games out there that are making a killing with it.

Perhaps it's the same reason why he doesn't like cheap smartphone games? Because he thinks they are undervaluing the video game? Or, more specifically, Nintendo's video games. Maybe Iwata doesn't want to budge from the retail way of selling video games.

Not to mention that a lot of people never pay for them. For example, I love CityVille and play it every day, but I will never buy anything in it. There is a certain stigma attached to free to play games, that they are not worth as much as paid games.

Anyways, I am glad Nintendo will be allowing third parties to do stuff that they themselves don't have any intention of doing.

Flipster, executives never have to take a pay cut voluntarily. It's a big thing that Iwata cut his own salary by 50%. How many executives at other companies not only don't take a pay cut when they cause their companies to fall into financial ruin, but then they get rewarded by being given millions of dollars when they resign or get fired?

Nintendo does not have to have it, but as long as it's there for 3rd parties to use then its cool. They shouldn't cripple the 3rd parties as they are the bread and butter when you a dry spell on your system *cough* like the Wii's current state *cough*

Wii Music.  Very few of its songs interest me, and the ability to get more would have been a great improvement. 

Hopefully Nintendo will at least release patches if the need arises, but it's nice to know they won't be getting into the murky waters of DLC.

Is what ever this article talking about any different from whats been going on with the Wii? I know the only time I paid for DLC was for Samba De Amigo, I absolutely had to buy "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. God I love that song! I feel like Nintendo already allowed 3rd parties to do what ever the heck they wanted. Or maybe it's just a new system run by Nintendo is all?

I assume it would be system based like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 DLC. With the Wii, you have to purchase DLC in-game only.

How often do hear about big corporate guys taking a pay cut instead off laying off people working for them? Not very often at all. My respect for Nintendo's "higher-ups" definitely went up a lot when they did that. AND them making DLC available for the Wii U, (which I was hoping for), is great, but doing it for the 3DS was even cooler. This is something they have been needing to do for a long time now and it's great to them doing now.

DLC is fine.
Nickel and dime DLC is not.  I'm glad Nintendo seems to know the difference.

Should we be concerned about companies "making a killing" (off of us, btw) or gamers getting value for their expensive purchases?

It really does seem like Nintendo is trying to rectify the commissions of the last few generations. It really does seem like they are listening to third parties and want to provide the best environment for them to make money.

All I know is that if I have to pay money to unlock Keldeo/Meloetta/Genesect, I'm flyin' to Kyoto and choking a bitch.

:-)  I'm gonna pre-empt the possibility of someone misinterpreting you, Shaymin.

LOVE the reference.  I have not seen the Chapelle show, or that Wayne Brady sketch, in years, but thinking about the scene where he says that brought a smile to my face. 

Though, the Chapelle show didn't hold a candle to the Kids in the Hall, IMHO.

I don't like the free game with a zillion microtransactions method myself, so I'm glad Nintendo doesn't want to get into that.  Though I think Iwata's reasoning is entirely because he wants to continue to charge $50 for games and if cheaper games become the standard, Nintendo is SOL.  But I don't like the microtransaction method because to me it isn't good videogame design.  If you have to block this or that with pay-to-play barriers, you're restricted in your game design.  You have to put all these choke points in.  I think the traditional one-time purchase method allows for complete freedom in game design because you don't have to take into account if the player bought this or that.

Plus the whole model seems to be about nickle and diming suckers on trivial bullshit anyway.  When games make you pay to unlock something in the game or something that is available on the releate date, that's a rip-off.  I'll pay for an expansion pack but not for some alternate costume that seven years ago would have been a free unlockable in the game.  Charging me for what used to be free is just an outright scam.

Which is exactly what would happen if Pokemon was in the hands of just about any other game company.

I don't know if I would call that any worse than releasing 2-3 versions of the exact same game.

But Nintendo doesn't do that to get people to pay more money (though some people do that because of it), they do it to encourage multiplayer. Well, the third version is pretty clearly intended to get people to double-dip, but the two initial versions aren't.

Even if they don't start out nickel and dimming DLC, it's no guarantee that the wont slowly move in that direction... :(

@Mop_it_up

see: post from Insanolord

@Insanolord

Yes!

@stevey

True... but at least we have evidence of philosophies that indicate honorable practices for the foreseeable future.

In that case, DLC would actually be a good fit for Pokémon. Instead of releasing that special version for full price, they could offer all of the added features as DLC for a modest fee.