Nintendo's Fils-Aime: Low-Priced Mobile Games Among 'Biggest Risks' To Industry

With retail titles for the upcoming Nintendo 3DS expected in the $35 to $45 range, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime actually thinks it's cheap, $1 and $2 mobile games that are "one of the biggest risks today in our gaming industry." Speaking to Geoff Keighley in the latest episode of GameTrailers TV, Fils-Aime contrasted "full-fledged" 3DS games like Steel Diver with a flood of cheap games on mobile devices like the iPhone that are "disposable from a consumer standpoint." "Angry Birds is a great piece of experience," he said, "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." Taking one last dig at the mobile competition, Fils-Aime added that he "think[s] some of those games are actually overpriced at $1 or $2, but that's a different story." While Nintendo 3DS, like the DSi before it, will eventually include an online shop for downloading free and cheap titles, the company seems to be continuing its focus on full-priced retail titles for the bulk of the new portable's software. Fils-Aime previously addressed competition from free and cheap digital downloads and social games last month in an interview with CNBC, where he said Nintendo's "great franchises really motivate consumers to buy the software." With many developers expressing concerns about the cost of developing 3D games for Nintendo's new portable, company president Satoru Iwata said last May that those costs depend largely on how developers implement the feature. "If you try to make something that's not in a 3D world into 3D, you'll probably have some cost," Iwata said. "There's still no foundation, and it's an area that requires trial and error. It is that trial and error alone that could see an increase in development cost."