News Nintendo: Mobile game prices are 'big risk' to industry

I don't know if Nintendo is worried about being fit, as much as being stuck. When you consider inflation, I think Nintendo has a real worry. They have been selling new console games for around $50 for decades. Over the last two decades, however, inflation has reduced their real profits from this price point by 38%. In other words, by not raising their prices significantly, Nintendo and other publishers are loosing profits in the long run. Add to that a saturated market, and you have bad news for earning any kind of profit. In other words, Nintendo and others have to put out a lot of effort just to make a profit at the current price point since raising that price point is almost out of the question. If they had to lower it even 10%, they say "bye-bye" to a good chunk of their profit.

 

The big old companies don't get the point of the modern mobile world and the casual games for mobile devices.
They still think that people are playing games on a GameBoy like they did 15 years ago, which they don't. They simply use their smartphones. Same applies to MP3-players that noone needs anymore these days, as the smartphone has taken this spot aswell.

People want easily available and cheap entertainment for a few minutes inbetween waiting for the bus/train etc. And they don't want to buy yet another device for it, but they want it on their smartphone.

PC-games and full-blown consoles are a totally different beast, allthough we see this market shifting towards Steam or D2D etc.

 

You'd think that, but I'm not sure it's already happening.
Have IPod sales gone down significantly? How many kids (as in under 10 years old) have a smartphone, how many a Nintendo?

 

*slaps forhead* is this guy from Nintendo actually comparing mobile gaming with console gaming? These are pretty much two different forms of entertainment, one casual and the other not so. I guess Nintendo has been pushing their console as casual for along time now, but still I don't think there is any comparison. Just cause mobile devices are getting just as powerful as their outdated console they are getting worried!

They are too scared to innovate, thats the problem! They don't want to take a leap into the next-gen era of consoles so they are telling, the only similarly competing area, mobile gaming to slow down a little and don't over take them. Well tough Nintendo! You better make a darn good console next time and you have plenty of people to copy and improve upon now so take the leap and you can charge £40 for your games ;P In the meantime I happy buying your games second hand off ebay for a tenner!

 

iPod sales are decreasing rather rapidly, with allmsot 20% decline over the last two years, while the iPhone sales ramped up by some 60% in the same period of time.

And kids? If I look around where I'm living in Finland, then basically every kid (6-18y) going to school has a mobile phone by default. And seeing the smartphones getting cheaper and cheaper, like for example a Nokia 5250 only being some €120 without contract the kids don't need a seperate MP3-player or a GameBoy (using this term generally) anymore.

And then there'll soon be the SonyEricsson Xperia Play, which is all you could've ever asked for, when the question is about a smartphone for gaming, music and video.



More detailed info -> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/sony-ericsson-xperia-play-playstation-phone-preview/

 

Serious problem: if they realize our game is only worth $2 they might actually demand it costs $2!~

 

I don't need app store games to convince me £40+ is too expensive for a game, I worked that out all by my self ages ago.

 

I get annoyed at spending more than 59p on a game for my iPhone so the idea that I would waste money on the silly 3DS and its £40 games is rediculous. A PC game retails at ~£25 and drops to around £10 in a few months. That's more like it.

A new Monster Hunter Freedom on the PSP2 might tempt me that way though

 

Wait... So he's worried about $2 games, that he deems as throwaways, canabalizing sales of his full on $40 console games? Isn't that the equivalent of worrying that microwave dinners will run fine dining restaurants out of business?

Someone go throw some fast food at him please.

 

Wasn't Nintendo fined for price fixing in europe dating back to the early 90's a few years ago. Obviously Nintendo immediately forgot this, so still keeps their prices sky high. £230 for a hand held and £40 for its games!!! I can only think of two games I've payed full price for on release, Commandos 2 and Half-Life 2.

 

Someone should do a mock ad of that, similar to the "Home taping is killing music" and "Piracy is killing music" ones.

The iPhone is killing games!

 

Well if his restaurant sells $40 fast food off McD's dollar menu there might be reason for worry...

 

Ok, a few points here I would actually agree with you on. The elastic pricing makes perfect sense and anyone worth their grain of salt would do that, ie, sell high when demand is high, sell low when demand is low. I would also agree on cheaper hardware. PS2 is one case example of cheap hardware shifting buckets of software (which we all know is where the money is made)

With product expectations, there is a general public consensus of what is acceptable for a game. I for one would have happily paid £50 for New Super Marios Bros DS - it was that damn good. I would do that same for the next Diablo and Battlefield games. Personally I don't think it's ridiculous but certainly I know there are a lot of people who expect cheaper games because the price of gaming is getting too high, and because of this I expect to see a shift towards a lower cost base game with DLC at the consumer's discretion.

Phone gaming isn't killing core gaming per se, but it will certainly influence the next generation of gamers and setting low standards in terms of price will lower price expectations in the future.

 

I see this guys point, but he doesn't make it very well.

 

I have to say that from some angles Nintendo's comments are tantamount to an admission that the major industry players have a concert party going on.

I can't imagine that every developer of a game on iOS or Android who prices their game at $2 is either an idiot or a charity. It must be sustainable for these developers otherwise the App Store would have withered on the vine pretty quickly, whereas it is still thriving three years on. Even considering that games from Nintendo and others may be that much more sophisticated (although iOS games are catching up), it suggest that Nintendo and others have been enjoying artificial inflated prices on the basis that the small range of traditional handhelds created a convenient barrier to entry for smaller competitors.

Given the way that iOS and Android games seem to be getting more and more comprehensive in the gaming experience offered, surely dedicated handhelds such as DS1, PSP etc will have gone Polaroid in a couple of years. I guess this is the real motivation behind their comments.

The solution, of course, is for Nintendo to start building its presence in the mobile gaming market. They have a great back catalogue of games and franchises, as well as loads of expertise. Why aren't they making great iOS games or at least porting some of their classics?

Lucasarts have done Monkey Island, Revolution did Brokensword, Square Enix have done the earlier Final Fantasy games as well as the new Chaos Rings. None of them seem to be grumbling about selling the games for a fraction of tradition console/handheld prices. Nintendo should grow up and stop whingeing...

EDIT: After posting curiosity got the better of me and I checked out the App Store. Searching for 'Nintendo' gets you a whole pile of third party apps along the lines of "Guide to Super Mario etc etc". In stark contrast, searching 'Sega' gets you a raft of Sega's own games, many of which have been really successful.

 

Visual Novels on Android and iOS, NOW!

 

This guy is basically saying gamers are so dumb they can't understand the difference between a quickly developed mobile phone game and a console/PC game developed over months/years. It's priced according to how much time taken to develop it, no one is going to pay £30+ for a retro looking mobile phone game. I have never bought a console since the gamecube because of the crazy prices, and I rarely buy any game at full price (maybe once a year).

He says 'I actually think some of those games are overpriced at one or two dollars but that's a whole different story.' Well funnily enough I'm pretty sure we can find a load of people who think nintendo's products are overpriced too.

Bottom line is that if he has a problem with mobile phone games developers and their poor games, then why doesn't nintendo do something about it and make their games available for mobile phones, I'm pretty sure their old stuff would crush most games available, but then Nintendo has policy of only having games for their own consoles, so it's their own .