Nintendo won't discount digital releases in the future

But it never hit the sweet $20 price until this year on the PS3. (Trust me I watched that price like a hawk.) Sony's biggest game wasn't exactly in a rush to get price dropped, that's my point.

@Bread_or_Decide: True, but it did drop and that's the point. For example, 3D World is still $60. It's not that it's a bad game (quite the contrary), but still $60 when the game is nearing it's 2 year anniversary? C'mon Ninty. Let poor people buy your stuff too!

Trust me, I'm on the side of the poor people. I almost never pay full price for games. Most of what I play is gifted to me on christmas and birthdays and the rest are heavily discounted titles. I'll probably join gen 8 when all the current games are $20.

Why? Their games always keep their resale value years after.

So doing something that's greedy and anti-consumer should be tolerated without criticism if they've done it for a long time?

Wonder how that theory applies to other wrongs committed throughout history...

@Desmonic: All failures...just like Xbox live, PSN, Steam OS, and all other online infrastructures. The internet is a fad, it will never last you fool.

Meh, I don't care. They have nothing I want digitally aside from a few select VC games, and well… why pay money for roms? That makes no sense. Not to mention their archaic system of tying purchases to a console. Nintendo is currently irrelevant in every way in the console space.

It's a wild concept to people. Apparently if they do something shitty for a long enough time, said shitty thing ceases to be shitty. Slave logic bro.

You'd be surprised how many people think this way in-real life.

Pricing your product to meet the demand is anti consumer? Umm okay.

Nintendo games = high demand.

So price = stay the same.

It doesn't get more simple than that. I'm sorry they're not giving you free games I guess that would be pro-consumer, huh?

Nobody wants to reduce their price. Just sometimes company's are forced to.

I love how it's labeled as "doing something weird."

Because pricing your product to meet demand is now "something weird."

Remember when the price of the Wii didn't drop for YEARS and people kept whining and crying about it? Well when a product sells and is meeting demand there's no need to drop the price. Am I really explaining simple economics to you people now? Jesus H. Christ.

All companies do this, they are trying to help physical copies out.

No, it's greedy and evil and it makes them slaver's and nazis.

I'm an entitled gamer. Give it to me for free or else I'll cry about it some more.

@Bread_or_Decide:

For the record I used "weird" as an abstract term for an abstract example.

Also Wii was cheap as hell from day 1, especially by comparison. Not really the same thing.

It's the future, publishers are building a foundation to screw the utter shit out of people. They want you not to care, just as people didn't care about DLC, preorder incentives and the buzz line "it's only", when introducing microtransactions to a $60 game.

Gaming is going to shit, we must save it.

Yeah but gamers didn't think it was even worth the $250 they charged for it.

But it's Nintendo doing it. I don't give two shits what Nintendo does in the console space right now.

#fireiwata #firereggie #savenintendo

Did I call it weird? no, I said it was shitty that Nintendo arbitrarily keeps their prices hiked up. It's not a demand thing, maybe during the DS/Wii era when their games had absurd legs, but most of the time it's simple: Their consoles don't have enough competition from other games so they can get away with leaving the prices that high even when the sales do taper off.

The other machines get new content frequently. Thus it's a requirement.

No one here knocked their business hustle, but just because you understand it doesn't mean you can't call it a shitty move, because I have no investment in that company. I'm speaking purely as a consumer, and them not making more of an effort to reduce prices digitally is lame, because their direct competitors do that. It's not a wild concept.

Shitty DLC makes a shit ton of money. Should a publisher stop doing it from a business standpoing? No, but does that stop anyone from pointing out that it's pretty shitty? Also no. This would be no different in that regard.

Considering the homophobes we have on this forum or you'll see on facebook/twitter,......that are my fucking age so they went to school in an era where its taught that being intolerant makes you an asshole, and they still came out hateful? Nah, I'm not surprised.

Are Nintendo's suppose to say this:

"if you don't purchase our software in the first 4 months it will be reduced for you".

Newsflash gaming companies want to make money.

Ubisoft recently said their aim is to make $200 per game.

Besides the Wii U's hard drive is so small nobody can download games anyway. I struggle making space just for demos and updates.

This isn't really anything new.

Nintendo hasn't priced down the majority of their titles on the eShop since day one.

This doesn't mean we won't get Sales that happen from time to time, but don't expect New Super Mario Bros, Splatoon, or Mario Kart 8 and the like to be $20 on there in the future.

Heck Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time are like $40 on there still.

Though I hope this actually means the Digital Deluxe Program is coming back, that would actually help out in sales.

The great thing about Nintendo games is that they tend to keep their value.

Gamestop is still offering $35 or so for Skyward Sword.

Although sometimes I do wish they would drop the price on some o their games (Tropical Freeze Im looking at you).

@gamefan67: Its on sale for $40 at Amazon right now.

@LegatoSkyheart: What's sad is that Ocarina of Time on the eShop is actually the best deal you'll find on it. Physical copies go for about $50. And Star Fox 64 is $68.99 on Amazon right now.

Nintendo keeps the msrp the same. Retailers discount them all the time. I just saw Toad Treasure Tracker for $32, down from $39. The Last of Us on PS4 was used as an example in this thread--that game still has a $49.99 msrp. The difference is that retailers buy so much they don't know wtf to do with the wasted shelf/warehouse space so they discount it heavily from time to time. Nintendo games tend to have a healthy supply/demand over a very extended period of time. As he said, they believe in the quality of their product--a game like Mario Kart DS was $34.99(I believe) from the time it came out until just about the time the DS started being phased out, and it would continue to sell.

Oh I didn't know you could resell a digital versions, in that case no problem.

@ten_pints: You said Nintendo products not digital Nintendo products. But yes, Digital Nintendo products have nice value also, the games on Wii U eShop can be played on the Gamepad without your TV, this creates new value to an old game that you might already have. I bought a game on Wii U eShop that i had previously bought on Wii eShop cause i wanted to play it without the TV and enjoy it on my Gamepad.

Pretty shitty, then again, if you own multiple Wii Us you already can't access your Digital content between the two machines. 3DS as well.

No reason to buy digital with Nintendo, and this stupid approach where they save money (no printing physical, no disc, no middle royalties) and keep the money is just greedy.

I only buy Physical with Nintendo, they simply don't know what they are doing with the internet. Hell, the base Wii U unit is a tiny 32GB (there is even a horrible 8GB version) and they want CONSUMERS to buy a larger HDD so the consumers can have the privilege of buying their overpriced digital games. I'll take the printed on disc, resellable, comes with a case Nintendo games, thank you very much.

Couldn`t give a **** about digital. Digital is for the birds.

Nintendo aren't known to reduce prices on their top tier games. I`m not shocked.

Of course they won't, ever decision at that company must happen with unanimous board approval, trying to maintain a flexible digital marketlplace would be waaay too much work for their senior staff.

This is why the NX is fucked.

I would trust some "fans" out there would understand why such a statement would cause me to grow more aggravated at Iwata, but alas, it is always easier to blame the consumer in such circumstances.

Well, gee. Mirko. Since you like calling anybody who buys newer Nintendo products "morons", why don't you start a revolution?

Well, gee, Nintendoboy. Since you like to essentially blame all of Nintendo's failings at the feet of the stupidity of everyone who engages in this industry as a whole, why don't you? Of course, that'd require growing a pair and addressing them head on and not snidely insinuating posts their way in replies to others.

@jg4xchamp: I was surprised by that and still am!

Dude, TF is awesome and totally worth its price. Try to find it used or something, cause if you like DK, you need that game.

I don't know why this is a shocker. Nobody remembers the late 80s where Nintendo had a policy with all retailers to never reduce the price of their consoles or games in retail stores? They had to get slapped with antitrust lawsuits to put a stop to that.

Another shitty, anti gamer move from Nintendo. Selling games full price is perfectly normal of course, but refusing to EVER drop those prices just spits in the faces of poorer gamers who (for almost every other series and developer) can wait a couple years and pick up dirt cheap classics in sales.

Skyrim Complete could be had for less than €10 on Steam, the GOTY quality titles like Batman and Portal for €3 or €4, while Mario Tennis and Animal Crossing Board Game are going to be €50 forever? And you'll lose them if your console breaks? And people still pretend to be surprised the WiiU is an utter failure?

All the talk about the NX was about hardware and such, but a good first step might be for Nintendo to stop kicking gamers in the face with such hostile pricing and policies. The Ninty fanboys defend it (as usual) but most gamers clearly aren't bothered dealing with it.

Everyone except Nintendo.

When the game stops selling, the price drops. If people would trade their Nintendo games in like they do games made by other companies, the price of new games would drop. Every company that can sell games at full price does so. Companies that lower the price aren't doing it to support gamers. They are lowering the price because they maximize profit at that lower price point.

@PurpleMan5000: Me trade my Nintendo games in? No sir, i rather die. I worked way too hard to get my Nintendo games to just let them go. I understand some trade in games they dont like, but i love bout all my games i buy, i just cant let them go. I dont even like letting friends borrow my games.

I don't trade them in, either, but that is why the prices stay high. You can play a lot of Nintendo games for free if you buy physical copies and put them up on ebay, though. The games you lose money on are offset by games you make money on.

@PurpleMan5000: Very true, a bunch of my Nintendo games are worth double what i paid. And if i count inflation, they are bout all worth more then i paid.

Lol, stop lying fanboy. Their games stay at FULL price, then disappear. You can find second hand copies for a bit cheaper but the new copies? Never go down, unless they are shit like Other M. I was seeing 50 euro Gamecube games long after there were 5 euro X360 titles.

Then Nintendo bitch about certain games not selling and almost never make interesting and different games again.

As for companies wanting profit, LOLDUH. Everyone starts out at full price. But EVERYONE else discounts. Literally everyone. The only possible exception I can think of is COD, but even that gets cheaper on STEAM sales. Nintendo still ask full price for 2d platformer rehashes when Steam is selling (literally) 20 new 2D platfomers for the same price.

Again, people pretend to be surprised when most gamers reject Nintendo? Lol.

I wish I could be surprised at Nintendo fanboys defending the horrible shit Nintendo do to them. But nothing surpirrses me about them any more. Enjoy spending more on Mario Tennis then other gamers will spend on 10 GOTY quality games, I guess.

@locopatho: I won't be buying Mario Tennis at all. I'll be getting Xenoblade Chronicles X for $60, and if I don't like it, I can sell it for $60 or more a few months later.

"Some companies price [downloads] cheaper due to there being no used sales or store price reductions," he continued. "We stress the value of Nintendo software, so we price the same."

I'm not sure of the correlation he's trying to make between physical discounts and digital ones here, usually new games remain full-priced on PSN, Live, and Steam for a good while alongside their physical equivalents, which also don't discount for a while. I've seen games on Steam 25%-50% off while in-store remains 100% MSRP.

Many of Nintendo's games' sales have obviously slowed (otherwise they wouldn't be having sales on the e-shop). Value is not some objective metric determined by the seller; it can be set by the seller but ultimately something is only worth as much as what someone else is willing to pay for it. I'm sure Nintendo brings in more money initially by keeping prices so high by fewer buyers who agree with that value, the question is whether Nintendo would ultimately be bringing in more $$$ in the long-run for those many more buyers that agree with a lower price. Iwata could very well be miscalculating in his judgement of how consumers view the value of Nintendo's wares.