It’s basically not to devalue Digital copies. You pay premium and feel like you’re getting premium. It’s like Apple charging high for their products to make it feel premium. They are playing into psychology here. And it’s actually not a dumb strategy because they have strong physical and digital sales.
I do agree it's playing into psychology, but I disagree with your assessment about it about paying a premium and feeling like you're getting premium--unless you're arguing that digital, which costs more due to equivalent pricing, is the premium sale. I think this part actually captures it: '"we decided that, since the contents are the same, the company would offer the software at the same price, be it the packaged version or the digital version," Iwata said.' It's the exact opposite of premium*. The real point is to mask the notion that physical and digital are different with different values. The point is to push the psychology that the only thing really being bought is the content.
I wouldn't disagree with that being a smart strategy in theory. The problem is, it quickly breaks down if you actually try to pursue it. What happens if your physical copy breaks? Will Nintendo allow you to download the game because you paid for the content? What happens if you want to sell your digital copy? Will Nintendo facilitate resale because physical == digital? Clearly the idea is heavily to frame the discussion in a fashion that reinforces the notion of copyright. I'd go as far as, perhaps the real point is to make digital == physical, so when the physical games go away they'll have a customer base used to physical games which will be a lot less inclined to pirate.
It’s like people that pirate a bunch of games but ends up not playing any because there’s too many games, and being free, they value them less, not caring for them.
Where as when you work a long days work, make money, and purchase a game with hard earned cash, you tend to value the game more, because you worked for it, and gave up money for it, at premium price. The game has more value and you tend to play it or else it’s a waste of money if you don’t. They are probably playing into this psychology.
Except I have over 1,000 games on Steam that I paid for. My hard earned cash isn't what has made me play more or less games. It's the actual desire to play those games--mostly I'm getting older and it's harder for me to stay interested in gaming. For example, I just recently finished RAGE (which I bought back in August/September). Now, if tomorrow I only had one game and buying another one cost $50?
Yea, there isn't no truth to the psychology. But the reality is as an adult who works hard to make money, game prices (even $100 games) are trivially cheap. It's actually children who can't make much in the way of money, who are more Nintendo's audience, that I think would be effected by such things. It explains nothing about why nearly every other console maker follows suit, though. :/
And it’s the people that are buying into it and determining the market. If people just stopped buying digital and only focus on physical, this would force Nintendo to rethink their strategy and lower digital prices.
It's interesting you say that, as I actually looked some more into it. It sounds like ~75% of AAA sales are in physical copies. Further, there was
one site who partnered to surveyed some Europeans who bought boxed games over why they preferred physical over digital. They found 32% said they wanted a physical boxed copy and 18%/13% chose physical because it was discounted/cheaper. Then there was the ability to sell/lend games. Or more technical reasons like poor internet.
Perhaps the answer is simple: a difference in price of even $10 would radically shift sales of the physical to digital ratio result in a much harder to predict production goal for physical copies. I wonder what the non-AAA physical to digital ratio is like. Anyways, thanks for the links and the discussion.
* What would be arguing premium is why Nintendo games start high priced and stay high priced. What would be arguing premium is not bundling games, digitally only, with new consoles at potentially reduced prices.
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