Nintendo Announces First Forays Into Free-To-Play Gaming

Responding to the trends in the mobile market, Nintendo today announced their two first free to play games, both internally developed and both coming exclusively to the Nintendo 3DS.

The first of these is, as promised by Nintendo last year, Steel Diver. Dubbed Steel Diver: Sub Wars, the game includes local and online multiplayer and what appears to be a fairly standard free-to-play model, with a basic set of maps and submarines available to players to begin with, and more being unlockable with transactions. It is available on the eShop starting now.

Nintendo’s other F2P title, however, is much more interesting, and it has that typical Nintendo twist that you would expect- Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball will be releasing on the eShop in April, and it has a free to play model where you can actually haggle over the purchases. No, I am serious. You can actually negotiate the price of your purchases down by haggling with the merchant.

Now that is awesome. It makes the act of F2P purchasing a game unto itself.