Hideki Konno, the creator of the Nintendo 3DS, has told online gaming publication Gamasutra that Nintendo isn’t concerned by cheap rock-bottom priced smartphone games and the company has no plans whatsoever to lower its pricing strategy any time soon.
“We’re not going to try to match that,” he insisted, addressing the issue of rock-bottom priced smartphone titles.
“We’re just going to continually strive to not just maintain, but increase, the quality of the entertainment that we’re providing, and let it sort itself out. Again, we’re not worried about competing at a price point level.
“Now of course as a customer, if somebody said to me, ‘Hey, we’ve got Call of Duty on your portable device and it’s only going to cost you 100 yen,’ yeah, I’d be super stoked, really excited about that.”
“And I’d be really excited to see a great game at a really cheap price, but I just don’t think that you could make a game that’s immersive and as big as, let’s say Call of Duty, or any other large title, and sell it at that price point; it’s just not possible.
“The only way that you’re going to get a game at that price point is if it’s a limited version with limited levels or something. They’re going to have to reduce it to sell at that price. So that other game – because the content is valuable – it’s still going to be a viable product at a higher price point.
“If we went out and created one of our titles – a big title for Nintendo – and we decided to sell it at, like, say 100 yen,” he continued, “how many do we have to sell to get back our investment? That number’s insane. It’s just incredible, right?
“As a game developer I’ve put my heart into what I create, and I’m hoping that what I’m putting out there is something that people will be engaged by and entertained by. And as a consumer, I want the same thing. If I go and I see a game that interests me and I think I want to play it, I don’t mind the fact that I have to pay a reasonable price for it.
“I’m not trying to say that I think games on cell phones are a bad thing; I’m not trying to say that they’re worthless, or have no value at all. I’m just saying that they’re just different.”
– Hideki Konno, Nintendo
This is very primitive thinking, but to each his own.
No it’s very accurate thinking
I think he is completely correct.
You develop a game to that quality and sell it for that low of a price!! Go ahead…
He is actually very correct. I’m tired of hearing from iPhone developers saying that console games are dead. They’re all idiots!
Good.
good for nintendo. the gaming on the phone is getting out of hand. i mean, look at those losers who developed angry birds! they actually have the balls to say “console gaming is dying”!
Nintendo always finds a way to shoot themselves in the foot.
No, people are just stupid enough to believe their are quality games on the AppStore
I agree, completely. The two are too different of beasts to be compared, let alone be threatened by the other.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played and enjoyed a few games of Angry Birds, I’m just getting a little annoyed of people acting like it will eclipse console gaming.
Pilot Wings Resort should be a much, much cheaper game, considering that it’s already been featured in several games. Not forgetting it’s also planned to be a race track for Mario Kart 3DS. Nintendo do make quality games, but if they’re going to continually recycle content such as this then the customer should expect to pay a lower price.
A map on Mario kart is a total separate issue, not that big of a deal!
(Talking about Wuhu Island)
PS3 games are worth 5 dollars and sony sell them for 50. (Black Ops, etc.)
No PS3 games are worth the majority of their cost. Their games are steep in their price (more than $50 btw)
sound logic.
Here is the thing, right now sonic 4 for example sells for 6 dollars on iphone and on console its 15, its relatively the same game with some lowered grsphics but it has all stages and bonuses. Another example, street fighter 4 is now for1 buck as a special discount and that game features a lot of content. Im not saying this article is wrong, but for 3ds games they should have sated to 30 bucks not 40. Specially with a game like pilotwings resort that lacks content, it may be good but it lacks content that even an iphone game may have more.
Street fighter 4 is not even close to the console version. The reason it is only 59p is because it is for charity, and rrp for it is indeed £5 or so. And the iPod version doesn’t even justify that price with the limited options it has.
Honestly I’d rather spend $50 on a game than $1, because then I’m more committed to completing it.
This is very true i hate those mini games on Smartphones they’re so cheap and useless, I really enjoy console games better
do u guys have any idea how many ppl would download pikman if it was 1 dollar? more than a million. look at how noone was buying sf4 on iphone @ 4.99 and then they dropped it to .99 and sales skyrocketed exponentially…. nintendo is my homies… but fail on their part for that one…. whether they want to admit it or not they are in direct competition with itunes and droid marketplace …. same rules apply
Console aren’t that expensive now days compared to the Mega Drive days. Games then were £40 and I know it costs more to make a cartridge than a CD, but have you seen the end credits on games now. There’s loads more people that made, say, Red Dead Redemption compared to Golden Axe and the games cost about the same. I payed £65 for Virtua Racing and SF2 turbo on the Mega Drive back then. It is a bit wrong when you can get, say, Peggle on iPhone for £1.79 but on PSP it’s £6. Plants v Zombies £1.79 on iPhone, about 800 points on DSiware. Mmmmm!!!
Hi there, great blog. Very exciting, two in one? I think i can enjoy more playing as well as using it as a phone.
(Warning I apologize in advance for the, really, really long rant)
Some of you might know of the video game crash of the early 80’s. Gaming almost died out.
A lot of things contributed to it, but in short there were too many systems out with too many cheap, poorly made games to go with them.
Then the Nintendo entertainment system rolled along sporting good quality games and the rest is history. Nintendo put in place quality measures that all console companies used and still use today.
I see the low quality that caused the crash reflected in smart phone gaming today. Many phone titles have little substance to them. Thousands of cheap games are pumped out, but very little are actually good or even comparable to consoles and hand held consoles. The few that are good are shallow and are thrown away for the next quickly made shovel ware.
If smart phone gaming becomes the next step for gaming, I see another possible video game crash coming our way. Hardcore gamers are going to get bored of shallow fodder like angry birds, and yearn for the days of Zelda, Half-life and other good quality games that have a lot of effort put into them.
I’m glad we have gaming companies like Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Sure they care about money of course, but they also understand the importance of quality games.
You get what you pay for. Smart phone games are cheap but in the end they can’t match consoles or hand held consoles in quality.