Nintendo tells developers not to share digital sales numbers

[Zlejedi]

HappySqurriel said:

Zlejedi said:

How about we compare system with well protected value of games (wii) with system most "abusing" sales and plenty of free stuff (Steam) in regards to content ?

First off, Steam started out as a very abusive/hated service and it was only after about 5 years that people actually started to see it as a positive ...

With that said, I think you are working really hard not to see my point. Regardless of which approach you prefer, or which approach actually works out better, there are (generally) two incompatible approaches a service can take when it comes to the pricing of digital distributed content; you can set and protect a price level which tends to focus on high margin low sales, or you can allow companies to price however they want which tends to devolve into a low margin high sales model.

Much like Apple did with the iTunes music store (which was highly successful) Nintendo has choosen to set and protect a price level for their content. Regardless of whether they have achieved this, the approach is taken to ensure that a game can sell for a high enough value that the company turns a profit; hopefully resulting in increased content creation in the future.

In contrast, the approach of allowing prices to be set by anyone is usually taken to create high enough demand to compensate for low per-unit sales.

 

 

Now, Nintendo's "Failure" and Steams "Success" has almost nothing to do with pricing strategy ...

While Valve agressively worked to drive both consumers and publishers to their platform, Nintendo has neglected these services because they did not see a greater value in them. Realistically, if you switched their approaches to how games were priced Wiiware would still struggle to find content or consumers and Steam would still be the highly popular service it is.

Oh I agree Nintendo aproach has it merits- for company.

But i can't understand how can anyone defend the "entertainment always for full price" stance as benefitting consumers when it clearly doesn't work in real world (but theory behind it sounds cool).

iTunes are wholly different since they charge 1$ per song and as such offer much better deal than classic cds.