We finally hear from Doug Bowser!
On the pricing:
“What you see right there is variable pricing,” Bowser told The Washington Post. “We’ll look at each game, really look at the development that’s gone into the game, the breadth and depth of the gameplay, if you will, the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences.
On Nintendo Switch:
Bowser said Nintendo remains committed to selling the first Switch console. Four years ago, in our first conversation, Bowser said the Switch is “redefining what a console cycle can look like.”
“Now I even wonder what is the definition of a console cycle,” Bowser said. “We’ll continue to keep Nintendo Switch as part of the family, giving consumers a number of different entry points that they can come into the gaming universe.”
(…)
“What I would say is that we’ll continue to observe consumers and how they engage and enter into the platform at various levels to try to really understand what the future may look like,” Bowser said. “Here’s the other point. We have an install base [for the Switch] of 150 million plus units. We’ll probably announce more on May 8 when we have our next earnings call. We want to keep those players engaged. Not all of them may be ready to jump to Switch 2.”
So basically Nintendo fans need to vote with their wallet or gaming is about to get really expensive for us all.
Nintendo fans will vote just like Apple Fans.
They would pay to lick the boot
That’s generally how luxury pricing works, yes.
Unfortunately… Gomo, and the switch 2 will sell out instantly and Mario kart will also sell out instantley
Oh, were looking at game “durability”? So, when I can beat the next Mario game in a few hours, does that mean it’s only gonna be $20? No? You’re just making up excuses for increasing the price of games? Right.
Good point. Dude says it’s “variable” pricing, so if MKW, being an online multiplayer racing game that theoretically could have unlimited play time for many players, then a single player game with only about 40 hours average gameplay should be hella cheap by comparison, right?
Well, DK Bananza IS cheaper indeed
Don’t forget that you have to pay for a subscription to play online, which is one of the reasons the game is playing for a long time.
“We’ll look at each game, really look at the development that’s gone into the game, the breadth and depth of the gameplay, if you will, the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences.
idk what better explanation you could expect. He’s very clearly explaining the reasons here and you’re all being hysterical about it.
Clocking in at 7 1/2 hours, why is Princess Peach Showtime $60? It should be $20 with this reasoning.
Because it was a new AA game and most platformers are around ten hours. $20 is for indie games or big DLCs.
It sounds like it comes straight from a “how to take as much money from your fans as possible” talk.
A better explanation would be “because we want your money”.
No it doesn’t sound like that 😂 You couldn’t say it any better than that. If you take what he is saying with what you know, it actually does make sense why tears of the kingdom is $70 over the normal $60 at the time.
It’s easy to say that it’s expensive until reviews are out or you play it. I can at least respect the quote because it’s holding up to be true with what they have done, but is it really worth a $20 increase? I guess time will tell.
TotK was worth the $10 for the exact reason he is talking about.
It’s a joke. Half of the argument is about how they can take more of your money.
The other argument is about how much “innovation and time” goes into it. But I can tell you that that’s a big lie. They have story, previous code and examples, previous frameworks and all the other stuff already from previous games. They also already make a big markup on the Switch itself.
So it’s all a lie. 😂
I am conflicted about the $80 price tag for MKW, but Nintendo already do variable pricing, it has games for 40 and 50, and now it seems they are going to try the 80 price range too.
And as always, vote with your wallets!
One thing you can always count on is NVIDIA, Apple, and Nintendo fans to let you down when it comes to voting with their wallets.
Heh, agreed. You still have to vote, but you just end up on losing side more often than not.
Though, I can’t point fingers at anyone anymore, cause this once I am one of those annyoing fan who are still going to buy it.
Consumerism is undefeated.
Bowser, boss of Nintendo…
I thought I was reading the onion for a second there, had to do a double take. Bowser is an insufferable idiot.
“We’ll continue to keep Nintendo Switch as part of the family, giving consumers a number of different entry points that they can come into the gaming universe.”
What a unique and novel concept they’ve never tried before.
I get “You can buy a 360” vibes from this.
Feels more like hedging their bets by keeping the GBA around with DS or keeping the Wii around with WiiU.
They need the money to sue more grandmas.
Parasite justifies its existence
Deny it profit!
How did that guy become CEO of Nintendo America‽‽ They’ve spent two to three generations of kids training us to OVERTHROW BOWSER!
So fucking industry greed. Gotcha.
My body is not ready.
Sorry Doug I guess you were the villain as your namesake after all.
I mean to be fair. 60$ in 2017 are like 75$ now.
And game prices haven’t been going up for a long time. Not that I want them to, but the fact of life is that the production cost for games are way higher now, while their prices are not. Everything else is getting more expensive. I’m not saying it’s not sustainable, but I understand that these companies want to make money, not just keep themselves afloat.
I see this argument a lot and it entirely glosses over the fact that the market is at least one order of magnitude larger, possibly two.
The cost of a game is the development, marketing, maintenance to some degree and in some cases physical production of the medium.
Past that it’s gravy.
You charge 70 in the 1990’s times 100,000 sales vs charging 70 now to a million sales.
It’s not like producing a car where you have a fixed unit cost, this is mostly copying already made data.
Yes, the tertiary costs can go up and the development costs can go up but the addressable market has also gone up significantly.
Nintendo specifically is absolutely not living release to release and is the worst possible example for this argument.
Not only do they not really do sales but they also have DLC all the way up the wazoo and frequently rerelease old games at current market prices, with minor tweaks.
They do not, however, lean all the way in to microtransactions, which is nice
I can’t really disagree with any point you’ve made here.
the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences.
Looks like the “1$ per hour of gameplay” crowd is finally getting what they wanted.
People are too worked up over the pricing, which is not a particularly big deal and was to be expected if you weren’t living under a rock for the last few years, and not worked up enough over the apparent shift away from physical game cards. As usual, gamers are spending all their time and energy chasing completely the wrong issues.
It’s just bold-faced BS. Variable pricing to match the experience would give us games like Princess Peach Showtime or Thousand Year Door for $20-$40. They’re just keeping the $60 baseline and charging $10-$20 more when they feel they can get away with it.
