Reggie on DLC, third-parties, mobile, new hardware, digital sales
Re/code recently caught up with Reggie Fils-Aime for a new interview. The Nintendo of America president discussed DLC, third-parties, mobile, new hardware, digital sales, and more.
Head past the break for some excerpts from the interview. Check out this link for the full thing.
Reggie on whether DLC is the “new norm” for Nintendo…
I wouldn’t quite frame it as “the new normal.” But what I would say is this: Where our developers see a strong value for the consumer in having additional downloadable content, we’ll make that available. Let’s take Fire Emblem, which launched last year for the 3DS. There was extensive downloadable content that extended the story, it added a lot of value to the Fire Emblem game because of the nature of that software. Mario Kart, we’re making available a tremendous amount of content for a very low price. That’s the way we think about downloadable content. If it makes sense for the game, and it makes sense for the consumer, we’ll make it available. It’s not that every single game in the future now will have DLC.
Reggie on third-parties…
In the end, what third-party companies want is a large install base to sell their games into [and] a wide demographic footprint that they can target their games to. They also want a robust connected environment so that they themselves can explore downloadable content or digital sales. [For] the Wii U business, year-to-date versus last year, our install base is almost doubled. We’re building that footprint for developers, with a range of games from Bayonetta 2 to Mario Kart. In the North American territory, just about every Wii U is connected to the Internet.
Reggie on whether it’s a problem that the Wii U doesn’t have the new Call of Duty and doesn’t have games like PlayStation and Xbox…
I would answer the question in a couple ways. Third parties are bringing multi-platform content to our platform — Watch Dogs from Ubisoft, as an example. I would love to have Call of Duty on our platform. I would love to have any of the big blockbuster, multi-platform titles. But I have to say, more specifically, I want games that provide a differentiated consumer experience. If you look at the other two competitive platforms, fundamentally, what’s the difference?
But interestingly, when you look at either one, either by themselves doesn’t have a lot of exclusive content. They have a lot of shared content. Look at it from the standpoint of, what don’t they have? They don’t have our games. They don’t have Mario and Zelda. I’d much rather be where Nintendo is, with a differentiated platform, differentiated set-up experiences that we can provide uniquely to the consumer. Let those other guys battle it out over, you know, which visual representation of Call of Duty is most compelling. I like our chances of having a differentiated console and a differentiated series of experiences.
This business is built on a year-and-a-half or two-year planning cycles, especially for the home console space. Products that they’re thinking about today are not going to come into the market until two years down the road. By doing a great job today in the here and now, that’s what’s going to feed the pipeline of great new third-party content coming onto our platform. For us, that’s the long game that we’re trying to play.
On whether The Pokemon Company’s experiments with mobile changed anything for bigger Nintendo…
It hasn’t changed our philosophy, which continues to be that we believe that it’s best for the gamer and the consumer to have gaming experiences that are unique and differentiated, and part of the way we deliver that is with our unique and differentiated hardware. That is our fundamental, core belief. But having said that, we’ve also said we’re looking to experiment in the broader digital space — selling our games direct to consumers digitally, downloadable content, the full range of alternatives. And we’re going to continue to explore those.
On Nintendo’s next hardware…
Our mentality is, fairly soon after we launch new hardware, we already begin thinking about what’s next. That’s an ongoing process for us. In the end, what galvanizes us to move is when our developers have a great gaming experience that can’t be done on the current platform. We’re not there yet on the Wii U. The experiments that Mr. Miyamoto showed at E3 show that there’s a lot of innovation to be mined with Wii U. We showed off the beginnings of a Zelda game coming to Wii U. We have a lot more content to create for the Wii U, but we’re always thinking about what’s coming next.
On digital sales…
Retail still is the majority of the business for us. But what’s interesting is, game by game and at different points in time, you see a different consumer reaction. Smash Bros. for 3DS, consumers wanted that game immediately. They didn’t even want to spend the time to get in their car and drive to retail to get it, so our digital percent for that game is quite high — about 20 percent of the games sold here in the U.S. were digital, which is a pretty significant piece. Compare that to Bayonetta 2. That’s a huge game, and could take up a large part of the memory in the 32-gig Wii U. That’s a game with a digital percent on the lower side, today about 10 percent or so. Our mentality is, we want the consumer to have the choice based on what makes sense for you, what makes sense for the type of game it is.
