Nintendo’s next two smartphone games will be free-to-play, The Wall Street Journal reports. Smartphone game maker DeNA—who partnered with Nintendo to release the Miitomo app in March and has plans to release four more games by March 2017—announced that upcoming titles Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing will be “free-to-start apps.”
Unlike traditional games that users buy up front, the free-to-play model lowers the barrier to entry for players, but is something Nintendo had resisted strongly until last year. The about-face seems to have paid off in a few ways, with Miitomo already downloaded by at least 10 million users and making more money than expected.