Nintendo's strategy is
indicative of a larger trend in the gaming sphere, where consumers pay
full price for a game at release, knowing
full well that it will become a crippled, or even inaccessible, product a few
years down the line when online functionality disappears.
It should be noted that while this survey data enables
full year estimates to be made for 2013 - 14, they should be treated as
indicative ahead
of September's Statistical First Release based on the annual SSDA903 data collection.