Nintendo Discusses Pricing Models for Future Mobile Games

Finally, some news on Nintendo's pricing on mobile games. As fans of the legendary video game corporation, we have been looking forward to the release of Nintendo games on mobile since the announcement of Nintendo's partnership with DeNA. Unfortunately, these titles, which will be original, yet will utilize familiar IPs, will more than likely start appearing in droves a couple years from now.

Moving forward, many of us have been concerned about the mobile pricing of these games. Some wondered if these games will be full-priced, similar to pricing models of several Square Enix games (Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana), though some also wondered if these games will be completely free-to-play, which provokes some worry.

So, CEO Satoru Iwata has clarified some on Nintendo IPs' pricing during the QA of Nintendo's 75th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. First of all, Nintendo isn't fond of calling their pricing model "free-to-play." Iwata goes onto explain that:

"About the shareholder’s question on how to charge for smart device applications, in general, there is one system to ask consumers to make a one-time payment for the application and another system to ask consumers to pay for additional downloadable content. As for the latter, people often call it the “free-to-play” system. However, since Nintendo is a company that wants the value of the games to be appreciated by consumers and wants to keep the games’ value at as high a level as possible, we do not want to use the free-to-play terminology that implies that you can play games free-of-charge. Instead, we use the term “free-to-start,” as this term more aptly describes that at the beginning you can start to play for free."

"As a result of this competition to discount products, smart device game applications are being sold at far lower prices than the ones for dedicated video game systems. I think some of you would have seen such campaigns as “90 percent discount for smart device applications” in the shops on your smart devices. Because it is a digital product, it does not require transportation fees nor other constant expenses necessary for packaged software, and some may think it is good if it sells (even at a low price point), but once the value of a software title decreases, it can never be increased again. Since Nintendo wants to cherish the value of software, there will be a limit to how low of a price we might want to attach to our game applications for smart devices. The price of our game applications on smart devices will be compared with the prices of other smart device game applications. We believe we should not limit our payment system only to one-time payments, even though this is not something that we can announce as a general principle because different payment systems suit different kinds of software."

"If I can add a few more explanations about the free-to-start system, even though you can start playing with the application for free, it later requires you to pay if you want to play beyond the initial area or to pay for items if you want to play the game in a more advantageous position."

So from what is gathered from these statements, many of these games will be free-to-start in order to preserve the value of Nintendo IPs, and that one-time-payment games could be an option, though it may not be difficult to generate revenue in that manner. Simply put, games will have various models.

Furthermore, in concerns to static pricing, Iwata confirms that when the value of a software title drops, the price can no longer be increased. And to address the concerns of whales -- or players who pay excessive amounts of money to play in a free-to-play or buy-to-play game -- Nintendo aims to create applications that appeal to a large variety of people, so that if a consumer makes small purchases, games can still generate plenty of revenue because there is such a large user base.

Finally, Iwata states that there won't be a lot of mobile games released between this year to the next, because mobile applications carry a strong aspect of service, whereas games on dedicated consoles are more of a product, creating the "strongest and most fresh impact on the world at the time of its release into the market but its impact can be lost gradually as time goes by." Thus, Nintendo wants to spend "sufficient time on the service aspect of each title" in order to create a long-lasting impact that will continuously invite consumers.

If you'd like to read the entire QA of the 75th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, you can do so here.

Wow, 75 years of meetings though. Have to congratulate them on that. This has definitely been a busy few months for Nintendo, as Club Nintendo officially shut down a couple of days ago in North America, and there have been reports fluttering about that the Nintendo NX will begin manufacturing in October.