Nintendo’s newly-announced Near Field Communication (NFC) technology allows the Wii U controller to exchange wireless data with outside objects — similar to last year’s Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure game and figurines. Company president, Satoru Iwata, announced the device at an investors meeting, but gave little information as to how the company intends to utilize it. Developers may find creative uses for this tech, but we think it’s likely that publishers will try to milk money out of consumers in the four ways below.
1) Micropayments
Iwata only gave one explicit example of how the NFC tech might be used, “micropayments.” He didn’t elaborate beyond that one word, but this probably means Wii point cards will no longer come with scratch codes. Instead, Nintendo will probably sell cards with NFC chips. Swipe it and points will be added to your Nintendo Network account.
