Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has spoken of his concern that low-priced, “disposable” smartphone software is a threat to the industry.
The explosion in popularity of cheap smartphone games has Fils-Aime worried that consumers will view full-price console games as too expensive.
Speaking to Gametrailers, Fils-Aime said: “I actually think that one of the biggest risks today in our industry are these inexpensive games that are candidly disposable from a consumer standpoint. I actually think some of those games are overpriced at one or two dollars but that’s a whole different story.”
Fils-Aime believes genuine success stories, such as Rovio’s Angry Birds – which has been downloaded more than 50m times – are the exceptions that prove the rule. “Angry Birds is a great piece of experience,” he said, “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.”
He was speaking ahead of 3DS’s launch in North America and Europe in late March. Nintendo’s latest handheld is released in Japan on February 26.