Reggie talks prices of software!

[Doobie_wop]

I half agree with him. I think that at this point in the App Stores life cycle, full fledged games can be found and enjoyed pretty easily and they are usually all for a low price. I don't realy think 3DS games can bring much to the table to combat the games on the App Store, when some of them look better and are just as fun for one third of the price of a retail game (examples would include Dead Space, Mirrors Edge, Chaos Rings, Infinity Blade, Game Dev Story and GTA: China Town Wars).

The problem is that peoples expecations are going to be warped into thinking that anything above $5 for a game is going to be too expensive and while a few I-Phone developers can prosper in that sort of environment, many of them barely get by when they are only making about 80 cents a game. This could mean that studios would have to cut their development costs from $700,000 to something like $400,000 just so that they can barely make a profit on a game. If they had developed a $30 game for the 3DS with a $700,000 budget, but sold 500,000 units, then they'd be rolling in money.

Some larger publishers could flourish in that market (like EA is now), but that's because they have the time, the influence and the money to continously invest and cut prices on their games. While smaller studios can do midly well, but besides the top 10 best sellers, they usually fall into obscurity because the market only buys into the top 15%.

We need a balance in the industry between really cheap and expensive games and as Pachter said not long ago, publishers are going to have to start raising prices on the App Store, otherwise larger games are going to fail on the platform and every other platform will suffer from the backlash.

Reggie is right, but Nintendo aren't exactly helping by re-releasing 15 year old ports and reusing assets from older games and then charging full price for them.