Nintendo wants to keep prices high
"...once the suggested retail price is announced, we should stick to it.... If the suggested retail price of any and all software is marked down in 6 months or 9 months, the customers will learn the cycle and wait for the discounting which will simply aggravate the decreasing sales of new software." - Satoru Iwata, Nintendo
What can I say? What can I possibly say in response to Nintendo basically saying that they don't like it when prices come down. I could berate Iwata as a greedy bastard who has a legacy of overpriced, rehashed software and hardware. I could point out how most software is priced the same whether a game is good or horrible. I could say that it should be obvious if a game stinks and no one buys it, the price should come down accordingly. But what can I say to such a blatant expression of greed and arrogance?
The fact remains that for every high rated, blockbuster videogame there are a hundred mediocre titles on the shelf. To say that we should be forced to pay the same price for a crappy game as an awesome game is crazy. Enough gamers still get fooled and pay full price for the bad games before their price goes down so let's not make things worse for the deveopers of the bad games who at least get their games purchased at lower prices.
This is exactly what I thought when I read his comments. It sounded like
he wanted prices to stay in the $50 range and not come down. It also
sounds like he says customers want it that way, as low priced games are
perceived as low quality. What a crock.
