Nintendo's 3DS launch title Steel Diver will resurface as a free-to-play experience
Diving into the F2P world
Remember last week? Remember E3?
Well, with all the ruckus around next-gen consoles and dead-exciting game trailers, you may have missed Nintendo's announcement that it is going to start experimenting with F2P.
At that time, all we knew about this forthcoming free-to-play Ninty game was that it wouldn't be a Mario or Pokemon title.
As of now, though, we know the exact identity of this upcoming F2P Nintendo game. Yep, it's gonna be a Steel Diver game.
Taking the plungeThe original Steel Diver was, in fact, a 3DS launch title, but Nintendo's first foray into the F2P space won't just be a lazy freemium-'enhanced' update of the original.
In conversation with IGN, Nintendo executive Shigeru Miyamoto revealed, "There is something we're doing with the Steel Diver idea that I think is going to open things up with that game... It's going to be very fun.
"We're exploring from a perspective of where we can take that from a multiplayer standpoint - it's going to have this four-player battle mode that I think is going to be very interesting".
Tell me moreYet while the legendary Mario and Zelda creator had a lot to say about the gameplay possibilities of this new F2P Steel Diver title, he didn't go into specifics regarding the implementation of the free-to-play model in this game.
With only a vague 'before April 2014' release date attached to it, no target platforms confirmed, and with a lot of its pricing details apparently undecided, this new Steel Diver experience is anything but set in stone.
We'll keep a close eye on the horizon for any disturbances in the water, mind, because this represents an interesting shift in business tack by The Big N.