First Cross-Buy game coming to the Nintendo eShop this week

One of the top complaints about the Nintendo eShop and ecosystem is the concept of being able to purchase a game and play it both on your Wii U or 3DS. This concept is called cross-buy and for nearly every other digital platform out there its a ‘thing’.

If you buy a game on the PS4 or PS3 it’s probably going to work on the PS Vita, certainly retro games will do. The Apple iPad and iPhone also share accounts and purchase an app one on allows it work on another (usually).

Late last year Nintendo the Nintendo Network ID to the 3DS and it was hoped that functionality would be coming to the Wii U and 3DS as well – alas not to be.

Until now.

This weeks Nintendo Download Update will feature the first Cross-Buy game. Squids Odyssey on the Nintendo 3DS eShop will come with a code to redeem the game on the Wii U. However if you purchase the Wii U version you don’t get the 3DS version. This likely means that the developer of the game is willing to give away the game for free and not a change to Nintendo’s policy on cross-buy.

This deal is only valid for the European store, we should hopefully be getting the game here in Australia and we’ll check with the developers. America – this deal hasn’t been announced for you just yet. We’ll have the full Nintendo Download Update later in the week.

Cross-Buy, it should be on Nintendo platforms – especially for Virtual Console. What do you think?