Satoru Iwata detailed a new “flexible price point” system for Nintendo’s loyal consumers in the corporate briefing earlier today. Based on the Nintendo Network ID account system, which allows users to purchase games for both the 3DS and Wii U, the firm will offer cheaper price points on games to those consumers who purchase more, providing they meet certain conditions.
However, Iwata stated that these conditions can be contributed to in other ways – such as inviting friends over – and would not rely solely on purchasing software. The CEO hopes to experiment with the Wii U first, but will work on the sales mechanism in the medium term.
“If we can offer flexible price points to consumers who meet certain conditions, we can create a situation where these consumers can enjoy our software at cheaper price points when they purchase more.
“Here, we do not need to limit the condition to the number of software titles they purchase. Inviting friends to start playing a particular software title is also an example of a possible condition. If we can achieve such a sales mechanism, we can expect to increase the number of players per title, and the players will play our games with more friends. This can help maintain the high usage ratio of a platform. When one platform maintains a high active use ratio, the software titles which run on it have a higher potential to be noticed by many, which leads to more people playing with more titles.
“When we see our overall consumers, they generally play two or three titles per year. We aim to establish a new sales mechanism that will be beneficial to both consumers and software creators by encouraging our consumers to play more titles and increasing a platform’s active use ratio without largely increasing our consumers’ expenditures.”
Better be taking about me, I just pre-ordered 3 games for February
That’s awesome.
The ratio of Hardware sales:Software sales is a genuine problem that no other company wants to fix.
Yeah, sure your system might sell 80 million units, but when only 1 million of those buy a game that’s of an outstanding quality, that’s an issue.
Even with games like Wonderful 101. Sure, WiiU has a very small amount of users, but there was absolutly no excuse for W101 to sell as poorly as it did, when it’s, in my opinion, as someone who plays videogames, and it’s a huge pussy when games get tough, the best game of the year, the best game of the WiiU, and one of the best games of it’s genre, maybe even Platinum’s best game, entertainment wise (hasn’t got the level of combo mechanics that Bayo has).
If every game Nintendo publishes/develops sells a high number of units, having only 30-40 million pieces of hardware sold stop becoming an issue, because you’re just racking in money from software sales.
*isn’t a huge pussy
Thanks, touchscreen….
To be fair, Nintendo do have a reward system for loyal customers with Club Nintendo. But nobody uses it, because nobody wants stamps or statues of luigi.
Nintendo need to just make Club Nintendo their online account system. Then have Club Nintendo give people discounts, or even have them be substitutes for online prices.
i dont fucking know why Nintendo havent scrap the Club Nintendo acc and marge it with N-ID
merge*
*shrug*
I still use Club Nintendo :<. I get cool stuff and free games with the points earned.
i dont meant that
i mean, merge the Clbu Nintendo with the N-ID
I am starting to despise Club Nintendo (Don’t misunderstand, Club Nintendo is an awesome idea that seperates Nintendo from Phony Sony and Micro$oft) but my countries CN is so bad it makes me jealous seeing all those awesome stuff on the other countries CN, you know what we have on our Club Nintendo? Shoelaces… Wii Remote straps… cleaning cloths… key rings… stickers… and a Mario Figurine… that costs 7000 stars… (so when you register a 3DS game you get 250 stars, so do the math how long it will take to earn a figurine or 2500 stars for some cheap shoelaces…)
my country has some issues with CN as well
When i redeem some stuff and ship it, my country adds a tax of the “POINT” value
for example, for them, a price that is 130 points is $130
imagine the tax now
My stupid country doesn’t even have a CN…
same here
i must fake my direction and use services like Aeropost to bring me the stuff
Too bad I can’t even fake…
My I guess High Command has other plans for simple Commanders as myself…
Hopefully they leave club Nintendo out and give discounts straight to eshop. In my country we don’t even have club Nintendo so we can only read news about how people in other countries can get free game when buying few games.
Club Nintendo US has all their good shit on unavailable. It’s been that way for months. Total fail.
But Club Nintendo is not global; we do not have it here in Mexico TwT
Man, the Axy and Spot days. :P
No. This is an awful idea. The problem with Club Nintendo right now is that they’re pushing it too much towards digital crap and not giving us cool physical prizes. Look at the stuff that Europe and Japan get or have gotten in the past: special game controllers and replicas of the Mario Kart trophies. The Luigi Statue is fantastic. It’s also the only good thing Nintendo has offered up to North American Club Nintendo members in about a year.
To be fair The Wonderful 101 is incredibly niche (though more exposure would be great!). But something like Bayonetta, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, they are in well known genres but don’t sell well despite PlatinumGames’ pedigree.
But I agree with you. If it can introduce people into more games and genres this would be beneficial for Nintendo, 3rd parties to indies, you name it.
Wonderful 101 is the same genre as Bayonetta…
Alot of people say “oh it’s Pikmin crossed with Viewtiful Joe”, but it’s actually “Bayonetta X Okami”, literally plays like them both combined.
So it’s still part of the same genre, and under the Platinum flag, but still didn’t sell. Now im not saying i expected huge sales, it’s a Platinum game, but sales as low as it got? Absolutely not.
One of the things i praise W101 for being is more simplistic gameplay wise, and more direct about how you play it, by not having loads of combos, of button combinations, yet still providing challenge for those who play it, or are looking for it, and yet pushing the entertainment value of the game to the maximum that arguably any game has ever done, and has only really been topped in animes like Gurren Lagann.
Honestly most of that games failure in sales was due to the terrible quality of reviewers this industry has….
Wonderful 101 was my GOTY for 2013 and it blew my mind and I really want a Wonderful 102!
My view is a bit different than yours, it’s hard to put in words but i’ll try. To me there is a deeper learning curve than a game like Bayonetta. Much of that learning curve comes from the the Wonder-Liner. It’s like learning how to use a hadouken in Street Fighter for the first time, it will take a lot of practice to get it right and I think many just don’t seem to like to learn anymore (IMO). It’s a tricky thing to balance in real time. Okami for example is a much slower game and easier to use the Celestial Brush whenever needed or required. Games’s like Street fighter, Bayonetta, Okami, Viewtiful Joe and any variations of are immediate and understandable. Then again, their concepts are nothing new now and everyone can immediately click with them and how their work and play.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone expected them to be that low even for a P* game. The demo didn’t help matters either, it wasn’t that great but I at least understand action games so it clicked instantly with me.
I just meant mechanically, it’s a blend of things from Bayonetta and Okami. The obvious wonder liner stuff works like Okami, but the block is similar, same way stuff like Hero Time Is straight out of Bayonetta with that games Witch Time mechanic, amongst other things, like enemies being immune to certain move ect. Which makes sense seeing as it’s Kamiya’s game.
I agree with the Street Fighter analogy, you don’t NEED to draw a perfect circle, or the exact shape of the object you’re trying to form, but you eventually find your natural way of forming it.
There’s a learning curve around some of the enemies too, with what can and can’t be blocked, or when to evade certain attacks ect like those mecha turtles, i fought them for so long using just the hammer, till i realised you can knock them on their backs if you block their single foot stomp then hit them. Every enemy has it’s own little trick to them, which is what i liked about playing through it again and again.
Honestly the only fault i have with W101 is the “shooter” section in chapter 6 (the ice one), it’s so slow and the camera angle is terrible, other than that, it’s pretty perfect.
The shooter levels were a throwback. Yes, a little slow but i accept that since that’s not the core. Having said that those levels made me wish for an actual epic shooter game. They just stopped making those. Ive never played something like that on a big flat screen and surround sound
I’m specifically talking about the one at the end of chapter 6 (if that is the ice level), it’s just not a very good one. If the camera was pulled further back, it would be fine, if a bit slow, but it’s just not great. Again, it’s like my only problem with the game. Even the gamepad sections i don’t really have an issue with.
No combos?!? Of course it does. What do you call it when you are morphing 3 or 4 unite morphs at a time? I loved the combo system in the game. This game is truly unique and for anyone who says the gamepad is useless. Please give this game a serious try . Fun factor is 10!
Have you played Bayonetta? You’d understand, that game has i don’t know how many different combination of combo that you can do, it’s insane.
Not saying W101 doesn’t have combo’s, of course it does, they’re just alot simplified, so that rather than XXXYYXX, XXX, YYYX, YYpauseXXY, YYXpauseYYY, XXXupY, and many many many more like Bayonetta has, it’s Fist, Fist, Fist stinger, Sword auto, hammer auto, or fist rising, gun rising, ect.
Know what i mean?
Btw the games I’m talking about are bravely default whatever the fuck, one piece :D for 31st and dcktf for wii u…
Flying Fairy, REMEMBER IT (seriously, it’s actually important).
And stop buying shitty games based on animes that won’t die -.- especially when good/legendary ones don’t get anything, even though it won’t be amazing if it did (if a good company developed it anyway)
that’s called mainstream animes
those animes, even if the plot is shitty, if it is hyped, they will keep the story on and on
I know, which is sad. Bleach is actually pretty good at the start…then it just kept going.
That’s why i respect stuff like Gurren Lagann, 29 episodes. That’s it. Yet still blew everything out of the water and had better characters than any mainstream anime. Having the balls to end something is good in my book.
to be honest, of the 3 main mainstream animes, bleach on the manga only arc, is by far way better than the other 2
and yeah, i fucking love short animes, reason I adored Pokemon origins
Origins was awesome.
Charmanders death screams haunt my dreams.
Is an anime/game/story/book
hence for me, is not that scaring
The exact same games I’m getting in feb
Oh yeah! As I don’t have access to Club Nintendo in Norway, I don’t get rewarded for buying LOTS of stuff from Nintendo. With this, I might get some positive things out of buying many games!
i hate to say, but i see Nintendo is jumping the shark
LETS HOPE IT WORKS
lol the Nintrndo show is over. ;) Time for a new season, maybe a spinoff to help revitalize things.
not what I meant, N could go one for a year or 2, both we want to get again on top rather than the current status
I hope this somehow includes retail purchases! I like the physical boxes compared to online!!?
agreed
you cannot collect software
Thats an interesting point, although a different topic.
When, not if, digital takes over, i’d love to see companies sell digital versions in store/online on amazon, but rather than a box and disk, they do things like art books, posters, figures with any packaging sales, + a little extra depending on what you buy.
I like cases and all, but if i could spend $60/£40 on a game without those but have an art book of the physical game instead, i’d be more than happy.
I tend to collect stuff, specially games
i dotn like any way of Digital only offers due to that(I do have my own Steam with a lot of games but that’s my uncontrollabel buyer addiction)
this is the reason i own most of Nintendo’s Special Editions(or Anniversary) of most of the Franchise
which reminds me
WHERE THE FUCK IS METROID ANNIVERSARY?
I know but the benefits of digital only are just too big. That’s why alternate collectables are nice substitute.
I know right! Where’s anything Metroid related for that matter…isn’t Metroid 30 this year?
damn, they better announce something like a Metroid Anniversary Edition
I would like all the 2D ones for WiiU
We already have Trilogy, so it’s time for the 2D ones to be all in one
Yeah i have Trilogy too, but i dont have Zero Mission only one i have missing, otherwise i own them all anyway, but dont have a GBA charger xD But i want Trilogy with motion+…forgot how uncomfortable it can be trying to keep the pointer in range…
again, as a collector, i own Zero Mission cart on GBA
on Trilogy, i didnt have any pointing issue
There wasnt an “issue ” so to speak, it’s just motion+ is way more natural and comfortable. I can sit in any position, or have a blanket over me with any other controller, but cant with standard wiimotes. Just a small gripe.
lol
Hope this somehow includes physical games.
so if i buy all my games retail i get nothing? sounds fair…
If this isn’t retroactive, I’ll be fucking pissed. It will either be an OK idea (cause Nintendo won’t discount that much) or it will further enrage early adopters like me (if it’s not retro-active)
This could be a disaster. People will get discounts to buy games cheaper on the eShop. … Well the eShop has RIDICULOUS pricing. So even with this program, we’ll still be paying well over retail. Damn. I hope I’m wrong. :(
If this is anything like the Wii U’s Deluxe Digital Promotion, I am SUPER for it. I don’t know how many times I’ve thrown an extra $6 game into my cart just to get that $5 refund. The only downside was that it was going to end this year… thankfully it sounds like it may have a successor!
If it is anything like that i’ll be very happy gamer. Deluxe Promotion has been so great. Those additional 5€’s has been very useful for me to buy some extra eshop games and Pikmin 3 DLC’s. :)
I like that idea, but I’d like to spend my discounts / promotions to non-indie games now I have enough of those. I’m missing their 1st parties, they need to get out the gate :/ One of the main reasons why nintendo isn’t doing to well. Barely anything out there for the nintendo fans.
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Sounds like a good plan. You know what else would be a good plan, games. Online multiplayer, voice chat, Put a controller pro in the box, do what you are doing with Platinum Games with more developers.
Sounds like the reward system I’ll be very grateful for :) Looking forward to hearing more about it for the 3DS.
This sounds like the perfect opportunity to implement some kind of “invite to game” system, like on Steam!