I remember how slow Nintendo was with the Gamecube on turning best sellers into Player's Choice titles and lowering the price, but where the hell are the Wii and DS titles? I mean, Zelda is 2 years old now and has obviously sold well, why isn't it down to $30 or $40? Or what about Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros, Warioware, Metroid, all of these are high selling titles and over a year old and still $50-$60. For the DS, it's the same thing. It doesn't seem to matter how long the game has been on the market or how well it sold, they still stay at their launch price. I know that there are a ton of budget titles for the Wii, but I'm looking for quality here. Other publishers, especialy Sega, will lower the price of their games themselves but nothing published by Nintendo seems to be lowering in price. Microsoft has Platinum hits already for the 360 and Sony already has a handful for the PS3. What's going on with Nintendo? Is there a reason for this?
Epic success of the Wii and DS. Iwata also said something along the lines that there is a mentality among people expecting games to be lowered in price on a schedule X amount of time after release... and that it's potentially detrimental to the industry. Now, I don't really know either way. I do know that some of Nintendo's games SHOULD be in Players' Choice line given the long amount of time. TLoZ:TP is a prime example. I also think Nintendo isn't ready to sell any of its first-party games at a lower price and, as a result, won't let the third-parties do so under the P.C. banner. Nintendo does want to be the first at all it does within its grasp. It's okay if Nintendo doesn't release a P.C. line.. We can always just buy the top-sellers used to stick it to them! xD
I'm not surprised, he's a businessman. It's the high price in gaming that has largely turned me into a pirate. If they started lowering prices, then I would be more willing to buy it than pirate it, as buying official software usually comes with a very user-friendly experience, as opposed to all of the homebrew involved with softmodding.
The drop in price of successful games is not a reward to the consumer as such, it's sole purpose is to stimulate sales. With the Wii and the DS Lite still selling for their launch prices here in Australia (~24 months and ~30 months on, respectively), and sales showing no indication that they will slow down any time soon, Nintendo would be fools to introduce a Player's Choice range at this time. I'm not sure of attach rates but I'm assuming with LoZ:TP and SMG they would be relatively high, and the profit from extra sales attained by reducing the price per unit would not cover the reduction in profit caused by the price drop. Simple supply and demand, when demand drops, Nintendo will drop the price to drive demand up again. They are a company and it all boils down to profit, they're not a community service.
You act as though these company's sole purposes are to cater to your video game whims. They are there to make a profit. I buy my games legit and it irks me to hear about someone pirating the games that I have to spend my hard earned money on. I understand if you want to play a game that is out of print then go ahead and homebrew and play it. The company is not losing any money from you because they are not offering the product any longer.
I'd have to agree. There are a number of active game developers here, and I think it's kind of rude to make any comment about pirating the games that they've spent so much effort creating.
+1 to that Alchy. RE: Player's choice... sure bargain games can be great, but when you're dominating the video game market, raising the average age of your demographic - cost enticement to users is negligible... Nintendo's new audience doesn't think about thegameplay/cost ratio - they think fun/buzz/fad etc. Besides, I for one hate the lack of continuity with cheaper 'classics' with the rest of my collection - do they put it in cheapy crappy packaging to show you're a cheapskate in front of your mates?! I buy used older games just to avoid this...:thumbsup:
