Iwata talks about the struggle of budgeting HD games, selling full priced titles
This is something that has becoming a huge worry for me regarding Nintendo lately. In recent months it has become increasingly apparent that the Big N vastly underestimated how much more work has to go into HD games compared to what they did on Wii, and as a result we’ve seen their game budgets going up, their games getting delayed, and consequently their Wii U console not selling. It’s somewhat troublesome, but what does Nintendo’s CEO and President have to say about the situation?
“Among such packaged software, however, the sales of popular games are much larger than in the past. Therefore, if we create more hit games, the software development business can still be very profitable. All games break even if they sell millions of copies worldwide, so we will continue to do our best to develop games which have high sales potential.”
– Nintendo President Satoru Iwata
Sometimes I wish Nintendo would just go back to make games with N64-level tech scaled up to HD instead of worrying about all of this modern mumbo jumbo. The concept that all games have to sell millions and millions of copies to break even is quite troubling, but hopefully Nintendo will continue to develop low-budget games like Sin and Punishment and Punch Out!! alongside the big titles.
