It appears that Nintendo is taking another step in the right direction with the Nintendo Switch. A leak of the console has revealed that the new console will allow users to redownload games using a Nintendo Account.
Nintendo traditionally tied digital titles to specific consoles, preventing owners from taking their games with them should the console need replacing. Interestingly, this was only the case for the home consoles, but doesn’t apply to the Nintendo 3DS.
The change in policy was spotted in an unboxing video on Youtube. Fighting game channel FloKO managed to convince NeoGAF user hiphoptherobot; who received the console early due to a shipping error.
While the video doesn’t specifically call out the new policy change in the terms and conditions. Instead, it appears for a very brief moment before the video scrolls away from it. The low resolution of the image doesn’t help either.
It reads: “Your Nintendo Account contains your Nintendo eShop purchase history and current balance. By re-linking your Nintendo Account after initializing the console, it will be possible to redownload any software or DLC purchased using that account. (Software that has been discontinued may not be available to redownload in some cases.)”
https://youtu.be/XqVa1MB90PU?t=2m57s
This sounds like yet another positive change for the company that had previously clung to the old way of doing business. Since the announcement of the Switch Nintendo has released several mobile games based on its own IP, and it is removing region-locking from games for the upcoming console.
These changes are not exactly revolutionary, Nintendo’s competitors have been doing it for years. At the very least, the company is stepping into the modern way of doing business. Even if it happens to be 10 years too late.
[Source: Polygon]
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