This week"s new game releases include Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D, a long awaited third person shooter for Nintendo"s 3DS console. However the game is getting slammed by fans and is getting a lukewarm reception from some retail outlets. The reason is the decision by the game"s publisher Capcom to not allow gamers to delete the save game file. Instead the save game file is put into the Nintendo 3DS hardware itself. The result is that the $40 game can basically only be played once.
This situation is not going over well with gamers who now cannot give Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D to a friend to play since the entire game"s content would be unlocked. It also makes selling or trading in the game at retail stores an iffy proposition. Indeed, the US"s biggest game retailer GameStop wasn"t going to allow anyone to trade in the game at their stores. However IGN is reporting that GameStop has since changed its mind and will now accept trade ins for the game.
Capcom is trying to do some damage control on this situation. It has released a statement insisting that "secondhand game sales were not a factor" in not allowing gamers to delete save game files in Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D. However, it didn"t give a concrete reason for this decision. It did try to push its case that the game still can be played more than once even with this feature, saying, "The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users."