Nintendo 'defends' high prices of downloadable games
Satoru Iwata (the President of Nintendo) says in an interview;
Quote ?Although the mainstream idea regarding the digital business in the industry before we actually started selling software in both digital and packaged formats last year was that the digital version should or must be priced lower than its packaged counterpart, we decided that, since the contents are the same, the company would offer the software at the same price, be it the packaged version or the digital version. This is because we want consumers to value software as highly as possible and because we have been trying to heighten the value of our software whenever we produce it.? Unquote
I was going to post something sarcastic here, but nothing I can say can compete with his words, so I won't even try.
Source: http://mynintendonews.com/2013/11/07/nintendo-attempts-to-explain-why-its-digital-games-arent-cheaper-than-retail/
Quote ?Although the mainstream idea regarding the digital business in the industry before we actually started selling software in both digital and packaged formats last year was that the digital version should or must be priced lower than its packaged counterpart, we decided that, since the contents are the same, the company would offer the software at the same price, be it the packaged version or the digital version. This is because we want consumers to value software as highly as possible and because we have been trying to heighten the value of our software whenever we produce it.? Unquote
I was going to post something sarcastic here, but nothing I can say can compete with his words, so I won't even try.
Source: http://mynintendonews.com/2013/11/07/nintendo-attempts-to-explain-why-its-digital-games-arent-cheaper-than-retail/
Post edited by ewgf on
Comments
I think he's trying to say the increased price is justified as it would be for product of a higher quality rather than we're trying to make our software more expensive all the time because we know you mugs will buy it anyway so there :D
Or who knows maybe he is just being a greedy c**t, and that's exactly what he's saying? :lol:
exactly, costs are less
no packaging, no glossy covers and manuals ON PAPER
no transport
no delivery costs
no storage costs in a big warehouse....apart from a slight bit of hard drive space and some internet fee
no middle man fees, or less middle man fees (depending on what sites etc its sold)
When it was ?6 for a length of tape wrapped around two spools inside two halves of a casette held together by tiny screws in a two-piece plastic box with a printed and folded insert then yes, production and shipping costs were a significant percentage of the retail cost. Nowadays, a plastic case, a few printed pages and a DVD on a slow boat from China is barely a scratch out of the ?40 asking price. The retail chains are all signed up with bulk orders so they do all the warehousing. The price reflects the development costs of the game; licensing fees for the tools, libraries and logos; a little cut to cover the losses from some other title that flops and a little cut of profit; which are exactly the same as you would need to recoup through online sales.
The only difference is the retailer's cut, but then that's no different to Apple or LEGO opening their own brand stores online and on the high street and keeping that themselves. If they did cut their own prices they'd instantly lose all their other retail partners as no-one would want to stock their stuff any more.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
Y'wah?
Erm, nope. There's no tangible contents of any kind in my download here. The 'contents' are completely different. For me, the packaging is half the game.
Okay, so it's an old argument, but I begrudge paying anything for a download... unless a pal has made it and needs a bit o' dosh n' support.
Otherwise it just aint worth it.
I paid for Lords of Midnight on the tablet, plus a couple of Fighting Fantasy games. They're good, but they mean nothing to me without a box. Someone release a boxed version with manual and I'll pay more for them, and enjoy them much, much more too.
If it's digi and there's a physical copy, I'll buy the real thing.
If it's digi released before the original copy comes out, I'll wait for the physical copy.
If it's digi and physical, but the digi costs the same as the physical I'll buy the real thing.
If it's an exclusive early release digi only copy that costs the same as the physical copy will when it's released later, I'll wait for the physical copy.
Personally I think digi copies of games should be for smart devices, tablets, PCs and MACs, and physical copies for consoles if I wanted to download every bloody game I played I'd stick to my PC or my i-Phone. DLC is fine as it's an add on I guess and usually gets bundled with a later budget bundle of a game anyway. Which is what I prefer tbh everything in one package, and you can't tell me these GOTY or Complete editions don't make a nice bit of coin for the people who make em'. They are possibly the best thing about this gen, getting the game, and all the extra crap that's been chiseled out of loads of people who didn't want to wait a little bit. Look at it this way, buy the game right away, then buy a load of extra crap for it over the coming months eventually adding up to almost as much as the game was, or wait 6 months to 1 year, and get the game, and all that extra stuff on 1 disc for about $20 cheaper than what just the game retailed at originally.
Call me stingey but I know what I'd rather do? :D
Prime example of a screwjob when it comes to DLC Asura's Wrath! Anybody who's played it to the point where you get the "TRUE" ending, will know what I'm on about when I say "TRUTH HURTS". Better get that credit card out if you want any kind of satisfactory conclusion to the game :roll:
Although this game was pretty badly received so I'd be surprised if a complete edition comes out ever? I will be downloading the add-ons to this, mainly because I refuse to buy a repackaged version with the extras just to see the real ending :mad:
So what you're saying is you'd buy a dvd case for 30 quid if it came with a free game? :lol:
I think it's more the publishers who decide to do these special editions. Presumably the studio gets royalties assuming they still exist and the IP hasn't been passed around six different holding companies in the meantime.
Bit like a greatest hits album eh? The publishers make a f**kload and the artists might get a few pennies on the backlash if they're still with em' :D
What you say is true, of course, but I think you're missing the point here;
Lego and Apple's stuff (well, Apple's hardware, anyway) is physical, so whether it's sold online or over the counter isn't the issue, but with video games it's a physical copy vs. a digital copy, which to a lot of people is very different, as (a) some people like having a physical copy for their collection, (b) you can lend a physical copy out to your mate (at lest until the software houses work out how to stop this), and (c) you can sell your physical copy of the game when you tire of it. None of this is possible with a digital copy, so in those respects a digital copy is very different from a physical copy.
Granted digital downloads are very popular on the PC, but the PC does have several huge advantages here;
1) Games are much cheaper (the sales on Steam, for example, can be amazing),
2) Some download services allow you to backup your purchased games onto DVD-R or external drives, so if your internal hard drive dies, and you can 't get a god connection to re-download the game, then you can still play it,
3) Your downloaded games aren't usually tied to one PC, whereas on a console, even if it's possible to play a downloaded game on your second console, you have to jump through hoops to do it,
4) You can buy a larger internal hard drive(s) for your PC very cheaply, so you can always have your games ready to play, you don't have to delete them to clear space, and then re-download that game if you want to replay it. Whereas if it's even possible to buy a larger HD for your console of choice, you're usually forced to pay more for the proprietary drive,
5) Downloadable games are often automatically patched to run on the latest OS. Granted this doesn't apply to consoles, but it's still a plus point for PC digital downloads.
Whereas you don't get these advantages when you buy a downloadable game for a console, so what advantage is there to buying the downloadable version of a game for the console, other than you don't have to walk to the games shop? If the games were cheaper in downloadable form, then fair enough, but if the games cost the same, then most people would surely prefer the physical copy, which has none of the limitations of the digitial download version, but also looks good on your shelf, can be lent out to your mates, and can be sold on if you tire of it?
Perhaps you could argue that second-hand trading negatively impacts sales of new product, and thus a company would prefer downloads and should therfore incentivise on price. But in reality, that's not what the consumer wants, and there's increasing pressure for legitimate second-hand markets for trading downloads anyway. The demographic is also shifting from people who are used to buying tangible product (cassette & cartridge generation) to a younger lot who are used to buying by download (raised on mp3s).
If you want the price of the download to be lower, there has to be a proven business case to do so.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
I'm probably not the only person to think like this either...
I work in the DVD distribution industry so I know what I'm talking about and it costs around ?2 to manufacture and distribute a DVD so the extra cost of a physical product is quite low.
Actually, karingal is the bloke who goes around posting AOL CDs through people's front door. He's currently working his way through the Outer Hebrides, which is why none of us have seen an AOL disc in years. :p
Here you go it's got a nice pamphlet and everything :smile:
I was about to jump up like a loony and bid on that, but then I realized it wasn't the version that came with the previous N64 Zelda games and the advanced version of Ocarina.
I'd have well paid $25 for that, I imagine these days I'll have to add at least another $100 to that $25 to get that package :(
Bloody Hardcore Nintendians sucking up all the good games and leaving us with novelty racing games, obscure sports games, and poor wrestling sims....oh and the occasional copy of Killer Instinct Gold or Mario Party.
I paid ?40 for my copy of Wind Waker from Amazon - I had it pre-ordered for ages..
I prefer physical copies over digital when possible.
No, spoilers please, as I've yet to play it, but how is Wind Waker? I've never played a Zelda game yet, though *everyone* says they are excellent. I have Wind Waker and Twilight Princess (both on the Gamecube), and Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask (both on the N64), and I do mean to play them, but I'm sort of saving them for one I can get a few unbroken days of play, as at the moment (well, decades :-o) I never seem to get much time for myself :-x
I haven't completed it unlike most other Zelda games, perhaps one day I will restart and see how far I get. I doubt that I will buy a Wii U to play it though; I still have the original Gamecube version anyway. :)
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True, but that doesn't necessarily make any applied cost morally right. And even if it isn't morally wrong to sell digital downloads at the same price as retail physical versions of the same game*, then it can still be seen as wrong by many paying customers, who feel like they are being ripped off.
* Some might argue that Nintendo (and our great mates Microsoft, of course) are doing something immoral in this, but I wouldn't got that far. It just seems to me like they are taking advantage of the situation to charge more than they could easily do, just out of greed (but a sort of greed that isn't illegal or evil as such, just narrow-mindedly selfish. And whichever way you slice it, saying they do it "...because we want consumers to value software as highly as possible and because we have been trying to heighten the value of our software whenever we produce" is utter ****.
It's a video game, not water or bread.
It isn't
Then they're morons. Who deliberately buys something that they don't think is worth the money?