This is a touch old, but I dont see many topics on it, and it has me thinking:
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, actually claimed that cheap $1 or $2 games for the I-phone and other portable devices are a threat to the gaming industry. His claime is that it builds an expectation that all games should be priced as such.
I cant help but thinking that he doesnt seriously believe that, he cant. Anybody can tell theres an enormous difference in the development and production of Angry Birds and Fallout 3. And I’m pretty sure gamers interested in the latter are more than willing to pay for it(indeed gamers are happily paying for those sort of ‘hardcore’ games).
I think his real concern isnt about ‘the industry’ as a whole, but about Nintendo. Several years ago Nintendo decided to focus on the casual gaming audience, who only play games sporatically(as opposed to the ‘hardcore’ gamers who play for several hours or more a day). Through the DS and Wii Nintendo introduced simpler touch screen and motion controls(as opposed to the more traditional multi button/dual joystick desgein other consoles have gone with), and have focused on more simplistic, intuitive games that most anybody can just pick up and play. As a result not only were both systems an enormous success, but they’ve opened up gaming to numerous people who were never ‘into’ it before.
However now that Nintendo has opened up the market, they have to face real competition. It shouldnt surprise anybody that somebody who only plays games on the subway on the way to work would rather pay $1 for an I-phone game than $20 for a DS game, especially since they already own an I-phone, and would have to pay $100 for a DS to play their $20 game on.
Personally I see these cheap games as a great boon to the industry, not only because they offer more oportunities for everybody to play(make no mistake, even hardcore gamers occasionally want something they can just ‘turn on and play’ instead of having to spend hours on). But it also allows companies, and even indviduals without the capital to build the ‘lareger’ games the oportunity to break into the industry, get their name out, and maybe beging to acumulate capital.
The way I see it Nintendo has two options: Go back to serving the ‘hardcore’ gamers or try to seriously compete with these new casual games, starting by improving and opening up their download services, which allow games to be produced and distributed cheaper than in disk/carterage format(because lets face it, hte DS download service is terrible), and maybe even work on something like their own brand of smart-phone.
But I’m worried Aime’s words may be the prelude of Nintendos attempts to lobby the government to crack down on downloadable games. And if that happens it WILL be a threat to the industry.