Nintendo "not interested in offering software free of charge"
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has poured scorn on freemium software.
"If we were simply going to say OK, the only the way we could sell more products is by decreasing the price, then there wouldn’t be a bright future and the entire industry will fold," Iwata told All Things Digital.
"When we look at the entire system of freemium, it’s not always that everyone is happy with the offers. Actually, there’s only a limited number of people who are willing to pay and many others are not paying for game titles at all.
"Nintendo is not interested. ... I’m not interested in offering software free of charge."
Iwata seems to feel offering games for free will devalue development.
"We can’t simply compare the total revenue generated at the consequence of developing one thing. My point is about how we can keep the public’s perception of the software," he said.
"If we are going to destroy the value of the game software — once we have done so, it’s a difficult job to recover from that situation."
The executive also has doubts about free-to-play's future as a business model, despite its success elsewhere.
"Is this the system that can be sustained for the long time? I don’t know the answer."
Plus, it's just not Nintendo's thing.
"I’m not willing to go that direction ... Just because many other people are thinking that way, we aren’t thinking that way."
Thanks, 1UP.