Nintendo to offer downloadable game codes through online retailers

Cue your iTunes to the Inception score before you attempt to understand Nintendo's latest plan to shill 3DS games.

As detailed on a Nintendo of Japan website and helpfully summarised by Andriasang, 3DS owners will soon be able to buy downloadable games through retailers like 7-Eleven, in the form of redeemable eShop codes.

This is a thing other platform holders do and it works particularly well for those who, for various reasons, can't or won't use a credit card to purchase downloadable games. What makes it a little confusing is that Nintendo has extended its offerings to online retailers like Tsutaya Online Shopping, Rakuten Books, Seven Net Shopping, Yodobashi.com and Joshin Net Shopping.

So, instead of putting your credit card details into the 3DS eShop, making a purchase, and downloading a game, you have to put your credit card details into a third-party retailer's online presence, receive a code, input that into the 3DS eShop, and then download a game. Bwauuuuuum.

Jokes aside there are probably reasons people might appreciate this service, like store-credit or store-specific credit card deals - not to mention keeping retail partners sweet with Nintendo's new digital strategy.

The first games Nintendo will offer simultaneously through retail, download, download via retail and - ha ha - download via online retail are New Super Mario Bros 2 and Demon Training. The service kicks off in Japan on July 28.