“We have considered it and have decided to price our console exactly what we had already decided, which is below what real video game consoles cost, but we will still overcharge you for the hardware we sell to you. But don’t worry, we considered it.”
Not to mention that the games actually worth playing will never receive any meaningful discounts so forget seeing Mario for half price
Biggest problem of Nintendo systems has been how the prices of games just don’t fall at the same rate. So even if the console is cheap price quickly goes past the the lifetime cost of Sony or PC even if the initial cost for both systems are higher.
Nintendo are very much aware what their business model is on this one, and who they are targeting.
For a lot of consumers, especially those who are lower income, the single most important factor is how much money you need to spend at once.
This is especially true because a key market for the switch is children, who have no direct purchasing power themselves, and depend instead on adults to buy it for Christmas and birthdays. So initial cost of entry is critical.
Simply put, ‘parents’ who are buying a console for their kids and expect to buy new games only rarely, have quite different needs to ‘gamers’ who are buying for themselves, and want new games often.
I’m not approaching it from a position of business analysis and how it is good for their stocks.
Just as a consumer where how much Nintendo makes is irrelevant to how it impacts my cost of gaming.
Right, and I’m not challenging you on that :)
As someone who games a lot it would be more cost-effective to do it on systems other than the switch (or switch 2) - I agree.
You said what the case is, I was hoping only to add some commentary on why.
For me, Nintendo is a pretty good deal. We have <20 games, and they’re all something my kids can play, loan to a friend, etc. Each game cost ~$40, which is high, but not crazy if I’m only buying a few per year. My kids will play the same game for hundreds of hours (Smash Brothers is incredibly good value).
Most of my gaming is on PC though. I spend way more on games per year, but I also get each game for much less. I rarely play past rolling credits, so I go through a lot of games.
Value per dollar spent is pretty comparable for us, if not cheaper for the Switch, if we look at play time. I have three kids that fight over the Switch, and they take turns playing the same game on their own profile, so we immediately get like 3x the value for any game we buy.
If I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t have a Switch because it wouldn’t provide enough value.
It seems silly to target a demographic that buys games rarely if that’s how you expect to make your money with the games and not the console price.
But I don’t work in sales or marketing, so I am probably wrong.
Imagine you could sell $39.99 shovelware to almost every single kid that watches Jimmy Neutron, because you’re gonna drown that show in ads for it.
The child then grinds down the parents’ resolve and the money is eventually spent.
I totally didn’t witness this first hand when sculpting feces into nickelodeon-shaped games.
The console hardware is cheaper to produce vs other consoles, so it’s not like they are losing on the hardware and aiming to make the money back later - they designed the hardware to meet a specific price point, and to capture a certain market.
Having captured that market though (kid owns a switch and now the kid wants games) they can pretty much set the price of games high and keep them high.
As a gamer buying for yourself, with every purchase you are weighing up the cost of the game against how much you personally want to play it. If the price is too much you will choose something else, or wait for a sale.
As a parent buying for a child, however, if the child says “I really want the new Zelda game for my birthday please!” then they get bought the new Zelda game, no matter how much it costs.
