Nintendo revisiting freemium model in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp

Nintendo has pulled back the curtain on its next mobile offering, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

The title, which was first teased back in April 2016, looks similar to other entries in the series, but has players managing and frolicking around a campsite instead of renovating an entire village.

Notably, Pocket Camp will be a free-to-play effort, and will let players purchase in-game items called Leaf Tickets using real money. 

Leaf Tickets can be used to speed up the construction of furniture, which is one of the primary focuses of Pocket Camp. 

It's an interesting move for the company, which earlier this year said it preferred the one-time-fee model seen in Super Mario Run to Fire Emblem Heroes' freemium structure. 

Super Mario Run, however, failed to meet internal expectiations, while Fire Emblem Heroes went on to surpass $5 million in revenue during its first week.

After that, Nintendo seemed to soften it's stance on free-to-play, and company President Tatsumi Kimishima said it would be willing to consider other pricing models in the future. 

"While there are consumers all over the world who want to play a Mario game, there are varying economic situations across the world, and some consumers are not able to pay for the game," he said at the time.

"This may be due to the price or the payment methods, so in the future we will consider not only a single set price, but other methods that incorporate a wider variety of elements that allow as many consumers as possible to play."

We'll be able to see whether the decision to revist free-to-play pays off when Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp lands on iOS and Android in November.