Nintendo on retailers: They're important

by Gaetano Prestia Featured 7 Comments 19 Votes 597 Views 16/07/2012 Back to News

Nintendo still has faith in "high-street" retailers, despite growth in digital distribution and cloud gaming.

Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, said that Nintendo wasn't looking to increase its margin by cutting out retailers and distributing its games exclusively over digital.

“I think it’s more that with traditional packaged products we need to produce them, ship them, there’s the stock keeping loss risk, and loss associated with products being sold out or you can have certain items overstocked,” he said.

Mr Iwata believes that digital distribution "will allow [Nintendo] to be more efficient in distributing content".

“I think the games that we make with this improved efficiency we can use to maintain our profitability or, even if software development costs improve for some reason, we balance it out that way; that’s what I’m hoping for from digital distribution,” Iwata continued.

He referred to Apple's method of skipping retail and working digitally, allow it to expand its profit margin. However, Nintendo takes a different road.

“Our way is quite different, we still think retailers are important,” Iwata explained.

Source: The Independent

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Kudos: 50,453

Nintendo

If I was Nintendo, I'd go straight to digital.

16/07/2012

I <3 SONY PS Vita ~ SONY PS3 ~ SONY PS4 ~ Nintendo 3DS XL ~ Samsung GALAXY Note 8

Kudos: 300,135

Tano

Nintendo said: If I was Nintendo, I'd go straight to digital.

Tell us why? You're on the clock.

jeopardywaitingtheme.mp3

16/07/2012

"Niko! Cousin!"

Kudos: 50,453

Nintendo

Gaming has changed forever and the sooner Nintendo get on the all digital distribution/download front, the better.
Nintendo fans around the world cannot play Nintendo games (the latest Mario, Zelda, etc game) on any other competing console, so therefore will have to get used to the fact that they only have one way of acquiring said game, and that is to... download it from the Nintendo eShop.
In short, Nintendo may be able to trap their fans this way, because it's not like a Nintendo fan is going to suddenly say, "awww, I only buy physical-retail Nintendo games...I'm going to switch sides now..."
And if they happen to want to leave the Nintendo ship, then I say...Good luck on finding these great Nintendo exclusives on other consoles...

16/07/2012

I <3 SONY PS Vita ~ SONY PS3 ~ SONY PS4 ~ Nintendo 3DS XL ~ Samsung GALAXY Note 8

Kudos: 24,647

Marge

Using Apple as an example for DD is always silly. Come next gen console games are going to be upwards of 15 gb. Makes sense to compare a 15 gb download to a 5 mb one on the app store *sarcasm*.

I love DD, but i don't get why people are so aggressively against physical media as well. Is there really any harm in them co-existing?

In relation to the article ... yes Nintendo ... the people who sell your games are kinda important.

16/07/2012

Your Mother's Closet

Kudos: 84,548

renagadez

Nintendo said: Gaming has changed forever and the sooner Nintendo get on the all digital distribution/download front, the better.
Nintendo fans around the world cannot play Nintendo games (the latest Mario, Zelda, etc game) on any other competing console, so therefore will have to get used to the fact that they only have one way of acquiring said game, and that is to... download it from the Nintendo eShop.
In short, Nintendo may be able to trap their fans this way, because it's not like a Nintendo fan is going to suddenly say, "awww, I only buy physical-retail Nintendo games...I'm going to switch sides now..."
And if they happen to want to leave the Nintendo ship, then I say...Good luck on finding these great Nintendo exclusives on other consoles...

I don't get your point.

16/07/2012

Sydney, New South Wales

Kudos: 23,974

l3ailey

Nintendo said: If I was Nintendo, I'd go straight to digital.

You are Nintendo. :P

I don't think that the market is ready for DD yet. Too many people still don't have the Internet quota, or live in a place with a dodgy connection. I just don't see a DD market being just as strong as a Physical market at this point in time.

Steam, however, is working amazing and it proves that DD can work.

But even then, I cannot see DD working as well as physical distribution on consoles at this point in time.

16/07/2012

Australia, South Australia, Adelaide ~ Steam Trains are my favourite everything

Kudos: 22

KyalR

Im 100% all for digital, but Aussies that are not hard core gamers like us have no idea really what digital distribution is. Nintendo must do both.. I work in retail and Nintendo's first party titles sell fast and, for long periods of time are out of stock with hundreds of customers asking for the product and none available. if Nintendo was to ship both physical copies and digital distribution cards. when the physical ones sell out, it may swing people to jump on the digital copies when they don't have another option. also having individual cards for each title will help attract peoples attention towards digital when looking for a sold out title. Nintendo just needs to make sure they supply adequate download cards.

16/07/2012

melbourne