Have Nintendo forgotten about this? Never mind, I'll make some guesses anyway...
Ever since the Wii U's NFC (Near Field Communication) function was unveiled in January, I've been tremendously excited at the possibilities of the feature. This is a completely new and unique feature that we haven't seen in things outside of electronic ticket gates and crazy arcade games in Japan.
Eight months and many public events and investor meetings later, we still know absolutely nothing official about how this will be used on Wii U. Weird. The closest thing we've had is a leaked (and completely mocked up) trailer from Ubisoft and a brief mention at an E3 meeting, rather odd if you ask me.
My initial predictions were the obvious ones; much how it's been used in Japan for years inside mobile phones and train passes - paying for smaller purchases. When you apply this to a gaming platform it would mean things like VC games and other smaller downloadable games. Much like what I mentioned on the Famicast, this would be a genius move on Nintendo's behalf, it would make buying eShop games feel like buying candy; quick, easy and moreish. Oh, a new level pack for New Super Mario Bros U? *beep*, bought. Cool a brand new eShop game from the creators of Fluidity? *beep*, done and done.
Good for business, bad for our wallets! (All game logos are complete mock-ups).Of course, knowing Nintendo they would make sure there are plenty of parental controls and security features, for example, limiting it to less than $50 a day or requiring your PIN. The other major feature would be toys. I'm talking Skylanders but for many more games. I'm not too keen on some aspects of this idea, as changing characters by swapping around physical toys seems like a chore to me (obviously not for kids, or Neal Ronahan). but getting a figurine in a special edition version of a game, that unlocks bonus content would be very cool, a lot easier than entering a 12-digit code and have more purpose than a Halo cat helmet.
Another feature that doesn't interest me, but probably would interest many, is trading card games. Here in Japan there are arcade machines that recognise cards (sometimes tokens) when placed on the machine. They tend to be battler type games, some even have multiplayer modes where you can battle the guy next to you. I could imagine a game where you place the GamePad in the middle of a mat, two kids facing each other, watching the battle take place on the TV screen. If linked with a popular franchise, I could see that becoming crazy popular, even outside of Japan (Pokemon anyone?).
Pokemon Tretta arcade with NFC card, tokens & carry case.The last feature I want to talk about was, at one point, a sure thing but now I'm not so confident it will happen. I thought Wii U games were going to be sold on NFC cards in stores, alongside the boxed versions. However if the situation on the 3DS is anything to go by, I can't see that happening just yet. If they're not even selling cards with numbers printed on, I can't see them sending out more expensive, chipped NFC cards to stores. Nintendo seems to still fall on the side of retailers selling boxed games for now, although they might start slowly introducing download codes in the future, we're a long way off at the moment. If you can guy games directly from the eShop, it shouldn't matter to the core gamers though.
It's just my dream of Mums, Grandmas and Aunties going into a store, buying a download card for $10 less than the boxed version and slipping it into your birthday card seems like a long forgotten dream (for now). It's a shame because that could really kick off digital sales better than anything Sony or Microsoft have ever done, without cutting game stores out the picture altogether.
What would you like to see done with NFC? Would you spend $60 instead of $50 on the next 3D Mario game if it came with a figure? Would you buy NFC trading cards, how about full games on NFC cards? Sound off below!
