During an interview with Destructoid, Nintendo of America’s head of business development, Dan Adelman says that the company is fully away of user complaints with regards to having accounts locked down on a per console basis.

“We don’t have anything new to announce, unfortunately, other than we’ve definitely heard that feedback many times from both inside and outside the company. It’s definitely something that we’re very much aware of. All development for the infrastructure really happens out of Japan, so we’ve kind of communicated this need in the market, and they’re very much aware of it and working towards really just always improving the eShop.”

“In terms of how developers or consumers are impacted by it, I’ve definitely read a lot of frustrations from consumers. I actually haven’t heard it too much from developers — it just doesn’t come up as much in conversation, or if it does come up, it’s usually from a standpoint of them also being a consumer as well as a developer. But I have never heard a developer say, ‘I’m interested in making games for the eShop, but because of this account system, I really don’t feel comfortable doing that.’ That hasn’t seemed to be a barrier at this point.”

The downside of course is that while Nintendo sees demand, there’s a lack of push behind it from Nintendo itself and the developers behind eShop games.

My guess on what’s holding back the release of a unified gaming account for Nintendo: licensing.  It’s likely that Nintendo is having a hard time renegotiating the terms of agreement with devs with regards to how much access we have to our digital purchases.  Also, forcing gamers to buy multiple copies (for whatever reason, having multiple consoles, losing your current console and buying a new one) of digital games is a boon for Nintendo and developers currently present on the eShop.

*sigh*  With digital sales picking up I seriously hope Nintendo makes changes sooner rather than later.