Altough it's hard to believe, f2p is extremely profitable. Crytek just announced they will stop making regular games and focus solely on f2p.
Since the games are free they get a huge customer base, and when people start buying small items they get hooked. Lord of the rings online is a great example, before they went free to play they where losing money. Now it's a huge success.
One thing that is a big focus is that it's not pay2win. But that you can invest cash instead of time or get exlusive items/looks.
And the way the business model would work is that Nintendo gets a percentage of each micro transaction. That way it would be very profitable for Nintendo aswell. The more f2p games the more money trickle inn to Nintendo withouth they doing any work.
I do understand that people don't like this model, but there's a huge chance you will try a good looking free game instead of having to invest full price for.