Nintendo moving away from device-based ‘relationship’, account system incoming

It’s been a sore point for years, we’ve bitch and moaned, but Nintendo looks like they have finally heard. Nintendo Network accounts will eventually be moved to from device based management to account-based management.

Finally.

Nintendo isn’t doing this move just because though, they actually want to. Speaking to investors today at a meeting in Tokyo, Satoru Iwata took to the stage to announce the move. Iwata said the move has been driven because Nintendo were getting disconnected from their customers. While both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U have backwards compatibility to play old software, this wasn’t enough and “we became disconnected with our consumers with the launch of each new device as we could only form device-based relationships”.

The Nintendo Network ID which Nintendo launched on the Wii U was the first step to this new account based system. The 3DS recently joined late last year when it also received the ability to link up to a NNID. “Nintendo 3DS was originally designed for a device-based management system, so making it account-compatible at a later time meant that not all of its features were perfect” Iwata told the room. “However, we feel that we have taken a step in the right direction as we now have a uniformly managed system in which we are connected with our consumers on both handheld devices and consoles.
Of course, when we do launch new hardware in the future, rather than re-creating an installed base from scratch as we did in the past, we wish to build on our existing connections with our consumers through NNIDs and continue to maintain them.”

Nintendo isn’t stopping there though, they’re also looking at how to get smart phones in on the action. “The traditional definition of a video game platform imposed a restriction in which we were unable to connect with consumers unless they purchased a Nintendo system. Given that the competition for consumers’ time and attention has become fierce, I feel that how we will take advantage of smart devices is an extremely important question to answer. However, in order to be absolutely clear, let me emphasize that this does not mean simply supplying Nintendo games on smart devices.”

Nintendo is looking at how to leverage smartphones to get the word out, we’ve covered that more here.

This is a great step forward, as Nintendo will be using the NNID system not only to manage ‘their relationship’ with us on Nintendo consoles but also other places where our attention might be. “In other words, our platform will not be bound to physical hardware and, instead, will be virtualized” concluded Iwata.

The big question is, how fast can they give us this?

Source: Nintendo IR