Nintendo advises developers to make compelling games to reduce used sales – Gaming news
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime believes that the best way to counter used sales is to start making great games.
During an interview with Polygon, he pointed out that his company has a much lower trade-in rate as compared to most of the gaming industry because consumers are apparently satisfied with the content and experience offered to them by their titles.
He stated that instead of becoming concerned about used sales, developers should start focusing on making games that will keep consumers interested for a greater amount of time and reduce their temptation to monetise their games.
“We have been very clear. We understand that used games are a way for some consumers to monetize their games. They will buy a game, play it, bring it back to their retailer to get credit for their next purchase,” Fils-Aime said. “Certainly, that impacts
games that are annualized and candidly also impacts games that are maybe undifferentiated much more than [it] impacts Nintendo content. Why is that? Because the replayability of our content is super strong.”
The Nintendo of America president used Super Mario Bros, Pikmin and Mario Kart to prove that gamers continue to hold on to titles that contain enough entertainment and replay-ability value, instead of floating them back into the market.
Even though used sales is being viewed as the culprit for major losses by many gaming companies, Nintendo is not the only one that believes the lack of focus on quality of games to be the real reason for the high rate of trade-in.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick expressed similar views while talking about used sales and their effect nearly a month ago.
According to him, whining and complaining over losing revenue due to trade-ins is not the solution, which is why his company has decided to remain focused on giving consumers games of the best possible quality and giving them a strong reason to hold on to
it instead of selling it to someone else after they are done playing it.
With Sony’s and Microsoft’s next-generation consoles scheduled to hit the shelves in the final quarter of 2013, used games have become a hot topic of debate among gaming industry stakeholders.
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