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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo's unrealistic pricing for old-school platformers et al.

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happydolphin on 05 February 2013
TruckOSaurus said:

In the example I've described, I honestly don't believe a $10 cut on NSMBW would have brought an extra 5 million copies. But to further the example, the games you've listed in your OP don't go over $15 which you seem to suggest is the reasonable price for 2D platformers, at that price Nintendo would need a 110% attach rate for NSMBW to have a similar revenue from the game.

Are you suggesting the lowered MSPR solution would lead to higher HW sales?



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forest-spirit on 05 February 2013
happydolphin said:
forest-spirit said:
Shouldn't 3D platformers also be at a way lower price? They have been around for almost 20 years after all. Super Mario Galaxy followed the same formula as Super Mario 64. Shouldn't Galaxy be at $10 tops then?

Planetside 2 offers a deep FPS experience for the nice price of $0. Does that mean that $60 shooters are way overpriced?

The problem is that cutting-edge 3D games like Halo 4 or even high-production 3D games like Galaxy require a lot more effort, general rule, than 2D games.

I conceded that I considered SFIV a high-production game, but it's the exception to the rule imho. The game seems to have required a lot of work in terms of artistic detail, much more than NSMB. And the gameplay at least appears to require more fine-tuning in terms of balancing and timing and all that. I'm not an expert but it's my understanding of it.


Galaxy may require bigger teams then NSMB but compared to games like Halo 4 the team size is probably closer to NSMB so following your logic the Galaxy games are still way overpriced. And 2D games do require lots of effort if you want to make good ones. You don't just sit 5 minutes with a level editor to make a good stage for a 2D platformer. It takes time, especially if you want the gameplay, level and playstyle variation offered by NSMB.

 

SFIV requires a lot of fine-tuning but so does 2D platformers. Just look at speed runs. Something as simple as placing an enemy requires testing and tweaking.



happydolphin on 05 February 2013
RolStoppable said:

Over 200 people worked on Epic Mickey 2 while Super Mario Galaxy 2 had maybe 50-60 people working on it. Clearly, the Disney game had much more effort put into it.

Isn't the measure man-month?



TruckOSaurus on 05 February 2013

If you go to the movies, you'll the same price for any movie, no matter if it's a big budget Hollywood production or a small indie movie.

If you go see the indie movie, do you feel robbed? No. If the movie is enjoyable, you'll come out of the theater satisfied.



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Spazzy_D on 05 February 2013
happydolphin said:
TruckOSaurus said:

In the example I've described, I honestly don't believe a $10 cut on NSMBW would have brought an extra 5 million copies. But to further the example, the games you've listed in your OP don't go over $15 which you seem to suggest is the reasonable price for 2D platformers, at that price Nintendo would need a 110% attach rate for NSMBW to have a similar revenue from the game.

Are you suggesting the lowered MSPR solution would lead to higher HW sales?


Come on, you have to be trolling now.  He was pretty clearly saying that Nintendo wouldn't make up the difference in games sold at a lower price point.   



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TruckOSaurus on 05 February 2013
happydolphin said:
TruckOSaurus said:

In the example I've described, I honestly don't believe a $10 cut on NSMBW would have brought an extra 5 million copies. But to further the example, the games you've listed in your OP don't go over $15 which you seem to suggest is the reasonable price for 2D platformers, at that price Nintendo would need a 110% attach rate for NSMBW to have a similar revenue from the game.

Are you suggesting the lowered MSPR solution would lead to higher HW sales?

I'm saying your argument doesn't hold water.



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NintendoPie on 05 February 2013
happydolphin said:
TruckOSaurus said:

But if you have to lower your revenue to get that market then it's not worth it.

It could lower your revenue. We wouldn't know until it's done right, right?.

In the meantime you have happier customers, and happier customers tell more of their friends, who end up buying more Nintendo games.

I'm not sure that we would see a jump in SW sales, if anything, they'll likely go down this Generation. So, unless Sony or MS make their games cost 70$, I don't think a Market Shift towards Nintendo just because their prices were lowered would happen. It doesn't seem too likely.



Spazzy_D on 05 February 2013

 

Spazzy_D said:

That's an awfully big gamble, taking a business model that is working really well and changing it becuase it "might" make more revenue, if it doesn't it would be disasterous.  It's actually a stupid gamble depending on how many more copies you would have to unload to surpass your previous revenue.

I understand, but it is also a big gamble to price games at a traditional $ number, games that have likely lost their novelty and may have a discovered "cheap" value in the greater market after experiencing the past entries, allthewhile new games are emerging in the market at a very low price with novel concepts that people are craving (I believe, especially after the Wii era).

Gamble versus gamble, I'd go with lower price.

How is using a working business strategy gambling?  At this point in time, it brings in consistent profit.  If it is being marked up, and starts not selling at some point, marking it down won't hurt it.  Marking it down, making less money, and not being able to convince people to pay the old price because of it will actually hurt.  Even if you consider the original business plan a gamble for some reason, you can't actually say it's a bigger gamble.



happydolphin on 05 February 2013
forest-spirit said:

Galaxy may require bigger teams then NSMB but compared to games like Halo 4 the team size is probably closer to NSMB so following your logic the Galaxy games are still way overpriced. And 2D games do require lots of effort if you want to make good ones. You don't just sit 5 minutes with a level editor to make a good stage for a 2D platformer. It takes time, especially if you want the gameplay, level and playstyle variation offered by NSMB.

 

SFIV requires a lot of fine-tuning but so does 2D platformers. Just look at speed runs. Something as simple as placing an enemy requires testing and tweaking.

I addressed the "Higher games are underpriced" point to Nikkom just a few posts up, go take a quick look.

Also, I wonder how they did it for SMB to make the levels so good, when they had some 10 devs on the game.

As for level editing and testing, that's a fair point. The artistic design though there's no argument for it. Not until NSMBU.

TruckOSaurus said:

 

If you go to the movies, you'll the same price for any movie, no matter if it's a big budget Hollywood production or a small indie movie. 

If you go see the indie movie, do you feel robbed? No. If the movie is enjoyable, you'll come out of the theater satisfied.

 

It's the same argument as Nikkom gave me. GTAIV should be priced 150$? They can't do that, at least I don't think it would work, just like I don't think 50$ will work for NSMB in the near future. No more novelty, and much higher competition nowadays.

7$, especially for a rental, I consider reasonable. I rarely go to the cinema and rarely feel not robbed, especially not with 3D. You guys may see it as value, I don't. An outing to the cinema is a luxury I only consider worthwhile if the movie is top-notch. Example: Skyfall.



shakarak on 05 February 2013

I bought Kirby's Epic Yarn for $12 at gamestop, and Donkey Kong Country Returns for 29.99 (about a month ago)