There is nothing wrong with the pricetag. You are clearly not a passionate enough gamer if you get a bad sensation paying $30 for a full fledged game with proper controls and without bullshit ads and addons you need to spend extra money on (i.e. smurfs and the berries, draw free and the colours etc.. the soccer game from gameloft money to get stamina to play, otherwise you have to wait a day to play another match. the stamina will cost you more over time than paying $30 once off).

I wonder what you would be saying if you lived in some european countries or australia where the price is double that of the US and the ironic part being for example in AUS, the dollar is worth more than the US dollar.

Just for your knowledge: I live in Brazil. Over here, we have the WORST prices around the globe. Imagine paying 75 dollars for a 30 dollar game. This is our reality, so I don't need you to tell me about the effects of this on gaming, I live this heh

And I guess you just misunderstood my reply. I'm not talking about HUGE titles, or EXCELLENT franchises: I don't care about theses pricetags because I already know I'm going to love those games. I'm talking about new games, games that are trying to suceed in the portable world by the 3DS door. Those games may lose space, shadowed by the excellent sales of Mario, Pokémon, Zelda and other Nintendo software. Those are the games that I'm having a "bad" sensation by trying. And the pricetag is not wrong at all, the problem is when we compare them with the cheaper/free games.

And as I may have not told before, I'm a Nintendo Die Hard. To support my 3DS, I've bought a LOT of original games, and my eShop is also full of games. But I'm just stating the fact: one may feel "bad" for purchasing a "medium-scored" game for 3DS because now they have the "medium-scored-nearly-free" games for iOS/Android.

And this is even worse when we talk about my country, because here we pay 2,5 times more than americans would usually pay for games. This is the reason why these games are popular: because (even though they are mostly HORSECRAP) they're free/cheap. And this may become the turning tide: those companies will try their luck on the mobile world. And they make big money this way.

I have a little cousin, about 9. I saw the progression happening in real time, DS to DSiXL, Pokémon Diamond to White, New Super, Mario Kart, the works. Then something changed. This past Christmas, his parents bought him an iPod Touch. Angry Birds Fever was upon him.

The iPod broke within a week. They replaced it with a 3DS, Mario Kart 7, and 3D Land.

I think maybe there's some kind of poetic metaphor to be made here, but I'm too lazy to take it the rest of the way.

You'd play NSMB2 the same way you play any touch game. Virtual analog stick, swipe up to jump, down to smash.  Or via virtual buttons.  There's much more complex controls schemes on touch than what NSMB2 would require.

I didn't compare to Resident Evil did I?  I compared to what are fun but simple games that we're used to paying $$ for but would now suffer from a value question when compared to iOS games of similar complexity and graphics.

Magus is right, we'll pay for beloved franchises (Mario is Mario) but new franchises will have a harder go of it.  Why pay $30 for a meddling JRPG when I could pay $5 for one on iPad?    More and more games on portables will have to be comparible to home consoles to warrent the cost.  This is fine in portable loving Japan, but in the west, by and large, we choose to play Resident Evil, CoD, Drake's Fortune and such on home consoles instead.  So what's ultimately left for dedicated gaming handhelds?

I'd also point out, the audience on sites like this would be the last to abandon their 3DS/Vitas, but this is not indicative of the gaming market as a whole.

"Ngmoco CEO "

mobile casual nothing to see here

"Apple and Android are now doing a number on Nintendo.""

Oh, so thats why the XL sold 200k in 2 days in japan, where they are dying>

"Extrapolating from trends in Japan, where mobile has far outstripped traditional console games to take the lion's share of industry profits"

3ds has been the number 1 selling platform in japan since last june, 3ds is going away in japan huh?

the guy is a baffoon

Its another example of an insecure mobile guy trying to take a shot at the big dog on the block


first of all his games are ****

He's right. Nintendo has not future proofed themselves as a company, unlike Sony. If nintendo finds itself dead in this upcoming generation, they will only have themselves to blame.

If you run a company based on a 2007 model, be prepared to lose.

Shouldn't that be "last of all" considering it's at the end of the post?

Also are you stealth no Dtoid?

The big question here is how exactly do the two industries interact? The article mentions the rise of mobile gaming in Japan, but at the same time portable systems are seeing incredible success.

In many ways, the mobile market is similar to the Wii. The iPhone and Android OS have opened up gaming to a much broader audience than before. Of course, the potential smartphone market is much larger than the Wii market, seeing as the penetration for smartphones is incredibly high.

As much as I hate to do it, I'll use personal experience. Pretty much everybody I know has downloaded at least one mobile game, whether its angry birds, papijump, infinity blade, or whatever. However, among my friends who regularly played the GBA/DS/etc, I haven't noticed much of a decline. Most people who buy dedicated handhelds are dedicated gamers, and the Smartphone market still has a tremendously long way to go before they're really winning over these kinds of gamers in large numbers.

Where Nintendo is at risk is among the Brain Age/Nintendogs market that helped make the DS so successful. Nintendo will have a tougher time convincing that crowd in the value of those games. Nintendo hasn't really made their big casual push with the 3DS yet, but it's going to be interesting to see how games like Animal Crossing and Demon Training perform next year. Hopefully, Nintendo will be able to properly explain the value proposition of this software.

While many people see the iphone as doom and gloom for the handheld market, I think it's actually a tremendous opportunity. Again, look at the Wii as an example. The Wii enjoyed an incredible level of success, and many people who had never even considered owning a gaming console purchased it. Towards the end of the Wii's lifecycle, Microsoft and Sony have been trying to draw some of those Wii fans to their system. In this scenario, the Wii was essentially a gateway console which allowed Sony and Microsoft to tap into a more casual market.

In the same way, ios and aos games can be a gateway to dedicated portable consoles. Many (the majority even) of iphone/pad/pod/w/e games are going to be perfectly content with the offerings on the ios. They'll play free aps, and perhaps download the occasional paid game, and they'll be fine with that. Others will start to desire deeper experiences and will work their way up to more complex ios experiences. As gaming becomes part of their regular gaming lifestyle, having a dedicated handheld may start making sense...

Of course, not all ios gamers will wind up with a 3DS or a Vita, but some will. If 1 out of every 10 ios owners who were not previously gamers eventually wind up purchasing a dedicated handheld this would largely expand the traditional handheld market.

Sadly looking at the sales of Apple and Nintendo Hardware this appears to be the case.

Currently Nintendo has a lead on apple in terms of quality video games but with more and more people buying and making games for the ipad its just a matter of time until we see companies making massive investments in single pieces of software for the ipad.

The 3DS being primarily a gaming platform will continue to find it harder and harder to compete with a hybrid device like the ipad and iPhone and in the worst case may cause Nintendo to drop out of the Hardware business.

Apple probable wont be a major threat to the home console market until they either make a home console device or allow people to hook their ipad up to a tv and use a controller.

The thing is, pardon the pun, Apple casually sells some 3 million iPhones and iPads every week. Even a fraction of it being consistently used for gaming beats any handheld ecosystem by far.

Oh, and nice touch the ad hominem in the end. Swearing at someone behind the internet and a fake username. You're evil as a pony aren't you.