Europe Gets Nintendo’s First Cross-Buy Title

Today, Squid’s Odyssey, an action strategy title from developer The Game Bakers, arrived on the European eShop. While the title might not have caught a whole lot of attention before, it’s certainly making some headlines today. That’s because it’s the first example of Nintendo allowing a game downloaded on one platform to be played on another. European gamers who download Squid’s Odyssey on 3DS will get access to the game on Wii U at no extra cost! Oddly, there are some very particular limitations to the deal. For one, it only works for those who download the 3DS version (rather than the version on Wii U), and it also seems that the deal will remain exclusive to Europe, according to an interview Siliconera conducted with The Game Bakers:

“…we really like this promotion and wished to make it happen for all gamers, but NOA could not support this kind of promotion.”

This certainly seems to be a “two steps forward, one step back” scenario. On one hand, it’s good to see Nintendo making progress on cross-buy, but on the other hand, it certainly raises a question as to why only one territory made the effort to support it. In the interview, The Game Bakers also revealed that it was Nintendo of Europe that approached them about making the cross-buy feature happen. Why couldn’t Nintendo of America also support the option?

Since Nintendo merged Nintendo Network IDs a few months back, pundits have pointed out the need for cross-buy to happen between the 3DS and Wii U. Sony has been doing this for sometime with PS3, PS4, and PS Vita, and it seems like a natural fit for the eShop and Virtual Console. It would be nice to see this as the start of something much bigger for Nintendo, but only time will tell.

Is cross-buy something you’d like to see happen on Nintendo’s systems? As always, let us know how you feel in the comments below.

Source: Siliconera