Nintendo Thinks Smartphone Games are "Cheap" & "Disposable"

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If you think being able to buy smartphone apps for $1 or $2 is great, some people are actually threatened by this business model being “cheap.” For one, Nintendo in the US thinks inexpensive smartphone apps might actually be a threat to the video game industry.

Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo CEO in the US thinks that smartphone applications–particularly games–have changed the user’s perception of portable gaming. Mobile games are now considered cheap and disposable. “I actually think that one of the biggest risks today in our industry are the inexpensive games that are candidly disposable from a consumer standpoint,” he says.

In contrast, Nintendo 3DS games are to be priced at $40 to $50 each, which is a far cry from the price of most Android and iOS applications and games out there. However, Fils-Aime claims that portable console gaming systems will compete in terms of quality. He says most of the one dollar games are actually overpriced when you think of the gaming experience.

Still, there are a few exceptions, he says. An example is the Angry Birds series, which he thinks gives a good gaming experience for two bucks.

Angry Birds is a great piece of experience, but that is one compared to thousands of other pieces of content that for one or two dollars I think actually create a mentality for the consumer that a piece of gaming content should only be two dollars.

Still, there’s probably the business sense in selling products cheap and relying on volume to make a profit. Nintendo probably can’t compete in terms of price, given development costs (the 3DS is, after all, new) and differences in media (physical cartridges vs. quick online downloads).