Well I guess this is alittle late but nobody posted it since the interview happened yesterday. Geoff Keighley did an interview with Reggie and it appears to have taken place in Nintendo World NewYork. In that interview Geoff Keighley asks Reggie what the prices of 3DS software are going to look like. Reggie tells him that they will resemble the current DS prices anywhere from 35-45$. But the conversation gets interesting when Geoff consistantly tries to convince Reggie that 45$ is just to much for a handheld game. Geoff makes mention of cheap I-Phone games, this is when Reggie decides to speak his mind about cheap IOS and other services games.

Reggie talks about Steel Driver the once demo for the DS now a launch title for the 3DS. Reggie states that a full fledged game warrants a higher price then a game that is "disposable from a consumer standpoint." Essentially Reggie says that games that sell for 2$ are disposable not good to own for the long term. This is probably due to the lack of content.

Geoff goes on the offensive for these cheap and apparently disposable games saying that Angry Birds was a real good game. Reggie replies "but that is one compared to thousands of other pieces of content that for one or two dollars I think create a mentality for the consumer that a piece of gaming content should only be $2." Reggie then takes another pot shot against the newer cheaper games found on mobile devices saying I "think some of those games are actually overpriced at $1 or $2, but that's a different story."

So what do you think is Reggie right? I believe he is but I am interested to see do you think Nintendo titles are more full fledged then titles found on mobile devices? Are Nintendo titles worth that much more then their cheap end counter parts?

Whats your opinion? Also note Angry Birds is coming to both Wii and 3DS could these downloadable titles see a future as full fledged games on Nintendo's devices?

While I think he is right to a degree, I think he is probably more worried about being able to sell games like Brain Training and Nintendogs at full price than the Marios and Zeldas.

The problem is more publishers who put their console/handheld games on the app store for cheap as a quick cash in.  Something like Lego Harry Potter that is selling for $5 on the app store, but $30-40 on handhelds and consoles.  If people are eventually only willing to pay those budget prices, then you probably won't be getting the same level of games as before.

As for things like Angry Birds I don't really see a threat.  Most of them are just rip-offs of flash games and those were free.

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. 

Another kicker is that, the devs put the exact same game on iPad at a fraction of the price of a DS game.

Take Ghost Trick, for example.

This weekend, I saw my niece download and complete 2 games in an hour for her iPod so I think there is a lot of truth in what he says ...

In many ways it doesn't matter though because comic books being sold for a couple of dollars doesn't prevent people from buying comic book compilations, graphic novels, novels, or hard-cover books at substantially higher prices.

Mr Keighley forgets that there are/will be downloadable games on the 3DS and NGP, too, and many of them will probably cost 1 or 2 $ or only slightly more. On the other hand how many games with a depth of let's say Super Mario Bros., Zelda, Little Big Planet etc. are available on on the iPhone/etc.? I don't know, but my guess would be not so many.

And why is he complaining about prices like 35-45$? That's very cheap compared to other countries! Even in Japan the normal price for DS/3DS games is 4800 Yen up to 6800 Yen. (58-82$!) And that's one reason why many games aren't ported/translated: Most Americans just aren't ready to pay the prices the companies want. (Economically the USA are the strongest country on earth with a high average income, yet a lot of people complain about game prices... I just don't get it.)

It's the evolution of flash games...only now costing money

Funny thing is those 1/3 of a retail price games probably bring their developers almost as much cash per title sold as $30 retail title and there's no second hand market/no borrowing etc.

IIRC $60 retail game was bringing around 23$ for 3rd party publisher.

He has to understand that times of selling casual crap for big bucks are over (or will be over in few years) and if he wants to sell games for $40 they need to offer highest quality and last a few dozens hours (read Mario kart/Zelda/Pokemon etc)

Sony seems to be much better prepared to challenge Apple for the $1-2 market which is kinda weird as Nintendo should know much better how to capitalize on volume of sales after Gameboy/DS/Wii.

One of my friends from University is now working for his third iPhone developer after the previous 2 went bankrupt. From what he has told me, the first two had (critically) successful games that sold for $1 or $2, but when their investors crunched the numbers and determined that they needed to sell games at $15 to break even based on the sales they were seeing the investment stream dried up; and the studios were forced to close their doors.

I can see the threat here, but this still ties into the general (and yet unproven) idea that growth of the one will diminish the other