The boss of Nintendo has again hit out at free-to-play business models he believes devalue software.
"Nintendo is a company which is trying to maintain the overall value of video games," Satoru Iwata told the Wall Street Journal. "We have no intention to provide a property to any other platforms, or making them available in a mode that does not require consumers to pay at all.
Iwata said that if it was forced to adjust its approach, Nintendo would come up with a "completely unique environment", before reiterating the problem 'freemium' software could pose to the public's perception of video games.
"I'm not interested in offering software for free of charge. That's because I myself am one of the game developers, who in the future wants to make efforts so the value of the software will be appreciated by the consumers.
"We can't simply compare the total revenue generated at the consequence of developing one thing. My point is about how we can keep the public's perception of the software. If we are going to destroy the value of the game software - once we have done so, it's a difficult job to recover from that situation."
Iwata criticised the growing culture of app gaming in March, again, with concerns over quality and value at the core of his thinking.
Comments
10 comments so far...
almanac2015 on 16 Jun '11 said:
How about just decreasing the price of the games 6 months or a year after launch? Nintendo game prices are ridiculous.
dannyhulse on 16 Jun '11 said:
Have you played Free-to-Play games?
Don't worry Nintendo, you aren't in danger.
Balladeer on 16 Jun '11 said:
Room for both. In fact, this reminds me of a comic...
boskersrevenge on 16 Jun '11 said:
You know, thinking about it I reckon it goes something like this...
"Journo asks question" "industry bod answers" "Journo makes story out of that one element" "children on line argue about it"
I mean, that's not healthy, is it?
jim2wheels on 16 Jun '11 said:
Actually, this reminded me of the supermarket beans war.
http://peteashton.com/2008/11/the_baked_beans_war_is_over/
Customers won in the end.
Laughlyn on 16 Jun '11 said:
These supposed free to play games tho usually end up with some form of micropayment to get cash out of folk.
Sur eyou can get some cheap n cheerfull games off app markets but for a game of any subtsance u find there is some kind of currency you need to buy to get certain weaponry/items.
As for Nintendo titles, i cant say £10 for Metroid: Other M is ridiculous and the only reason games like Mario or Pokemon hold their value so much is because everyone knows that theyre actually good. Its safest bet for people who dont really understand games and they keep their value for it. Super Mario 64 is still same price now as it ws on release day cos its popular.
I think that instead of making games cheaper a lot more shoul dbe done to increase a games playtime, nowdays everything is so focused on onlien multiplayer that single player campaigns are pitiful, something which has been made more noticeable with the psn downtime, i have a big game collection buiolt up over past few years and breezed through almost all of them while offline, most barely lasting a day. 'back in the good old days' it was single player only on a good adventure game, platformer or shooter and you used to get double or triple playtime you get now. companies brag that a game will have 10-15 hours gametime, thats p***poor if u ask me, they just get fleshed out with having you wandering aorund looking for pointless trinkets over n over again which, sorry to say isnt real gameplay.
SpandexArmstrong on 16 Jun '11 said:
Does this mean I dont get to keep the 'free' Excitebike I downloaded on my 3DS last week? Lol
unacomn on 16 Jun '11 said:
As opposed to releasing a ton of shovel-waggle-ware that decreases the overall value of your platform?
_Marty_ on 16 Jun '11 said:
Um... Are you THE Laughlyn, from the old SNES Shadowrun game?
Darkwun on 16 Jun '11 said:
this!