The good news about buying a Nintendo 3DS is that you'll be able to transfer your digital purchases from your DS system to your 3DS using an SD card, and Nintendo will be giving us more details on how that will take place closer to launch. The bad news is that once you buy content on the 3DS itself, it will be locked down to that system. Wired.com spoke with Bill Trinen, Nintendo’s senior manager of product marketing, to get the details.
Wired.com: If I buy a piece of 3DSWare on my 3DS, is that restricted to that 3DS that I purchased it on?
Trinen: That would be similar [to] how Nintendo DSi works.
Wired.com So it would be restricted to one 3DS, and I can't move it? Even if I put the software on an SD card?
Trinen: Correct. Once you've bought it, it's for the system you bought it on.
While this isn't a major surprise, it is disappointing. If you want to upgrade into the inevitable Nintendo 3DS part 2 or mini or whatever the plans are, there doesn't seem to be a way to keep your games. If your system breaks? We'll see if Nintendo has a way to retrieve the games you purchased.
There is no other way to put this: this is bad for Nintendo, bad for third parties developing downloadable games for the platform, and bad for gamers.
Update: Nintendo's official page claims that you will be able to transfer content from system to system a limited number of times at some point after launch. This is in direct conflict with Trinen's words in the interview, and we've asked Nintendo for clarification.
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