90% of 3DS Users Prefer Retail

[Marshall Honorof]

90% of 3DS Users Prefer Retail

Digital downloads on the 3DS account for only 3-10% of full game sales.

Say what you want about the precarious position of the retail videogames market [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120011-Analyst-Predicts-Doom-Gloom-for-Holiday-Retail-Sales], but it's not dead just yet. If 3DS owners are any indication, it's actually doing just fine. Nintendo's most recent financial report contained a number of disappointing findings for the developer, one of which is its digital sales on the 3DS. When offered the choice between buying a full-priced game at retail and downloading its analogue, gamers around the world went with the brick-and-mortar option 90-97% of the time.

"[The] world average ratio of digital download sales of packaged software as of the end of September varied from slightly more than 3% to slightly over 10% of the total sales," according to Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, who gave a presentation on the company's financial standing. Iwata noted that these Nintendo finds these numbers satisfactory, especially since the company made no concerted effort to advertise the availability of full games in the 3DS shop. At least one game, which Iwata opted not to name, achieved 15% of its total sales digitally. "[We] consider it to be a promising start to our new attempt."

One further point of interest: Of all Nintendo's global markets, consumers in the United States seemed the most eager to embrace digital downloads, followed by Japan in a somewhat more distant second. "The ratios in Europe and Australia are relatively small," said Iwata. Digital download sales benefit Nintendo, since more of the money goes directly to the company instead of third party retailers. Sooner or later, it will begin a concentrated push that encourages consumers to download 3DS games, and gamers can observe whether retail games will slowly go the way of the dead tree book [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead_tree].

Source: Nintendo [http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/121025/index.html]

Permalink

 

[TimeLord]

Once Nintendo/Game Freak get Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow onto Virtual Console. Then I'll prefer digital over retail.

 

[Ne1butme]

3DS owners prefer physical media over digital distribution? This is non-news. Lack of a large hard drive to store whole libraries and the tendancy to use the 3Ds (and other handhelds) in areas where WiFi signals might not be present (on planes, car trips) means that the only way to bring your library along is with physical media.


I'd like to see a similar poll with PC users. I imagine the ratios would be swapped.

 

[Baresark]

The offerings on their digital store is actually pathetic. There are not good games on the store. I look at it regularly and I'm super disappointed every time. The biggest offering tends to be in the area of 3D versions of old games. That is stupid. couple that with the fact that any game you can buy retail can be traded in later. All these super late adopters of digital are still so far behind the times. Steam is integrating a game trading system in their digital store. The consoles are only just getting in there with digital content worth anything, only to fall years behind yet again. Then, in final last place is Nintendo's terrible digital offering. They haven't even moved beyond their idiotic block system for memory counting.

As you can tell, I'm a bit disappointed as a Nintendo fan in their offerings. It's not so quaint right now be so behind the times.

 

[JoJo]

If they had a price drop, then I might consider purchasing one. As it stands, I'm not greatly inclined to drop £40 on a game when they usually are between £30 and £35 physical. Not sure about what happens if your 3DS breaks down but I'd hope there would be some sort of back-up system.

 

[Palademon]

I'd be buying Liberation Maiden right now if it wasn't hard to connect to my university's wireless.

 

[snekadid]

The offerings on their digital store is actually pathetic. There are not good games on the store. I look at it regularly and I'm super disappointed every time. The biggest offering tends to be in the area of 3D versions of old games. That is stupid. couple that with the fact that any game you can buy retail can be traded in later. All these super late adopters of digital are still so far behind the times. Steam is integrating a game trading system in their digital store. The consoles are only just getting in there with digital content worth anything, only to fall years behind yet again. Then, in final last place is Nintendo's terrible digital offering. They haven't even moved beyond their idiotic block system for memory counting.

As you can tell, I'm a bit disappointed as a Nintendo fan in their offerings. It's not so quaint right now be so behind the times.

So what you're saying is that Nintendos new hand held is keeping up with Sonys new hand held?

 

[TimeLord]

Once Nintendo/Game Freak get Pokemon Red and Blue onto Virtual Console. Then I'll prefer digital over retail.

Your a TimeLord, tell me. Will they EVER do something like that?

If enough people keep shouting at them to either do this or an open world full 3D Pokemon game then hopefully.

 

[chadachada123]

It's very simple:

When prices are the same, I will go for the more-convenient or more-valuable route. Since digital downloads not only are limited to my own 3DS only but are also unable to be sold AND don't come with an instruction manual, I'd rather get a physical copy.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I go for physical media 100% of the time. This is to the point that I am having second thoughts about buying digital only games like Pushmo, Liberation Maiden, etc. I have some downloadable games on my 3DSs but they're all from the ambassador program. As I've said in other posts though; when I spend money (especially significant amounts) I want something that I can show for it.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

...the 3DS has a digital store?[footnote]Yes, I know it does, I was making a joke. I never knew how to get onto it anyway.[/footnote]

 

[Baresark]

The offerings on their digital store is actually pathetic. There are not good games on the store. I look at it regularly and I'm super disappointed every time. The biggest offering tends to be in the area of 3D versions of old games. That is stupid. couple that with the fact that any game you can buy retail can be traded in later. All these super late adopters of digital are still so far behind the times. Steam is integrating a game trading system in their digital store. The consoles are only just getting in there with digital content worth anything, only to fall years behind yet again. Then, in final last place is Nintendo's terrible digital offering. They haven't even moved beyond their idiotic block system for memory counting.

As you can tell, I'm a bit disappointed as a Nintendo fan in their offerings. It's not so quaint right now be so behind the times.

So what you're saying is that Nintendos new hand held is keeping up with Sonys new hand held?

Haha, I suppose that I am. Handheld gaming is awesome and I hate the concept of it running behind phone games. But the offerings on my phone are mostly better, with exceptions being the RE game on the 3DS and some of their better remakes.

 

[Mr. Omega]

I count myself fortunate that my campus has decent enough wi-fi. I get plenty of the little digital games like Pushmo and Mighty Switch Force, but they're not that big. I wouldn't be able to store all the games I want to get on the card that comes with the system. Only reason I got New Super Mario Bros 2 digitally is because there is no game store anywhere on campus. It isn't that bad, but I've only gotten one game. I can already see it being a problem down the road.

 

[scotth266]

I've heard that this is because

1) No real sales to speak of
2) No real library to speak of
3) No real hard drive space to store them on

Of course, I don't own a 3DS so I can't verify any of that, but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

I imagine it has more to do with their generally lack-luster selection of games on the eShop, the somewhat impractical inferface of the eShop itself, and other assorted problems like storage or internet connectivity.

Seems to me those problems would need to be fixed before one could conclusively prove that retail is preferable to digital sales, since the entire point of digital sales is for convenience and selection, and Nintendo's eShop is not presently offering either of these in abundance just yet.

This might be exclusive to Europe (or possibly just Sweden/Scandinavia), but one thing in particular that strikes me is that the new 3DS titles are released a lot earlier in physical stores than the eShop. If I wanted to pick up Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance or Heroes of Ruin I have to hoof it to Torp or take the train down to Gothenburg to get them, because the eShop won't sell them despite the fact that they have been in stores for several months.

Not that I would buy them online anyway (me being one of those dinosaurs that prefers physical copies), but as it inconveniences the customer with this the eShop probably won't see much large-scale use until Nintendo changes this stance towards its DD platform.

Ah well, it has at least given me Dillion´s Rolling Western, so there is that.

 

[Yopaz]

If they had a price drop, then I might consider purchasing one. As it stands, I'm not greatly inclined to drop £40 on a game when they usually are between £30 and £35 physical. Not sure about what happens if your 3DS breaks down but I'd hope there would be some sort of back-up system.

A friend of mine traded his 3DS with a new one (Zelda edition) and he was able to get all of his software running on it without any problems. The only limitation is that you have to wait a week before you can swap to another system after that. The chance of going through 3 in a week is low though.

OT: Well, the game library on the 3DS isn't very big so I guess I can understand why. I bought New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Professor Layton is being released in hour so I will pick that up tomorrow morning. I like it since it makes it possible to get by without changing cartridges when I want to play my games, downside being that I can't lend them out to friends.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

3DS owners prefer physical media over digital distribution? This is non-news. Lack of a large hard drive to store whole libraries and the tendancy to use the 3Ds (and other handhelds) in areas where WiFi signals might not be present (on planes, car trips) means that the only way to bring your library along is with physical media.


I'd like to see a similar poll with PC users. I imagine the ratios would be swapped.

gotta agree, any common person could point this out about the 3DS, and as mentioned, if this were the pc it would be flipped, since downloads are so easy now a days not to mention hard drive space a plenty.

I really hope they don't take this to heart "oh noez! don't impliment digitalz!"

that, and they need to lower the digital price by like 5 bucks, i guarantee taht would get quite a few people's interest and they still probably make a net profit compared to what they are making via retail.