Nintendo North America president Reggie Fils-Aime believes that cheap mobile games are one of the biggest current risks to the games industry. Nintendo plans to release the 3DS in a few months, and games for the device will cost between $35 (R245) and $45 (R315). In contrast, many games on Apple’s iStore, such as Angry Birds, cost between $1 (R7) and $2 (R14).
“Angry Birds is a great piece of experience,” he said to Gametrailers, “but that is one compared to thousands of other pieces of content that for one or two dollars I think create a mentality for the consumer that a piece of gaming content should only be $2.”
Obviously the concern is that casual gamers in particular will become accustomed to paying next to nothing for games. These are the same gamers that make up most of Nintendo’s current target market, so obviously the company feels threatened by the meteoric rise of cheap mobile gaming.
Having said that, Nintendo has previously announced that it will launch an eShop for the 3DS, which will supposedly specialise in cheap mini-games designed to compete directly with the mobile casual gaming market.
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