The head honcho of Nintendo North America, Reggie Fils-Aime has criticized the price levels of apps in the iTunes App Store claiming that the low prices create a “mentality” for consumers that portable games should only be a few dollars. Fils-Aimes who is the Nintendo North American president and chief operating officer felt that such a mentality also breeds a culture that believes content is disposable because of the cheap price and that this was one of the gaming industries biggest risks today.
Whilst Fils-Aime’s is not the most independent commentator on this issue with his company’s Nintendo DS platform directly competing with the gaming aspects of iOS, his points do have some validity. Games on the App store have tended to be below $5 compared to DS and PSP games that are typically well above that range. The presumption is the Fils-Aime’s fears that the App store prices will spread across to all platforms and lead to more gimmicky, simplistic games rather than well though out, in-depth game experiences.
Yet to this date the games in the App Store have only been getting better and better and even Fils-Aime’s isn’t all negative, commenting that Angry Birds was a great experience. You can watch Reggie Fils-Aime’s talk about this on GameTrailersTV and pricing comes up at around 2:30.
What are your thought’s on prices and the notion of App store games being disposable?
[Via The Escapist, GameTrailersTV]
