Nintendo Doesn't Blame Piracy for Poor Software Sales

[Alon Shechter]

Riddle me this. Why is the most child friendly and "toy-ish" games company being the adult of this issue?

It's all a lie.
They're a children company in disguise.
Just like Activision is actually full of little kittens to manage it instead of adults.

 

[Asehujiko]

Err, just how rampant -is- console piracy? I never really got that, as whenever it comes up people mainly tend to talk about torrents and file sharing websites, mostly in the realm of the PC.

Figures range from 40 billion a year on the DS alone to basically a negative number because of word of mouth advertisement and stuff.

Most whining about PC pirates is the result of Sony going "hey, you get a discount here if you promise to not release that on two Microsoft platforms at the same time" and publishers prefer the guaranteed money from the bribe over trying to directly porting a game to an audience with much higher quality standards.

 

[Deshin]

They don't blame piracy for poor sales because Nintendo doesn't make games for the PC.

That and the majority of Nintendo's target audience aren't exactly the kind of tech-savy people who'll take to mod chipping their consoles or flashing the bios to install your own firmware to run pirated or emulated games.

Spoiler: Exhibit A

I wouldn't trust either one of these guys to make a sandwich, let alone solder a mod chip

Spoiler: Exhibit B

That's a look of guilt if ever I saw one...

Spoiler: Exhibit C

These people don't have time for fancy doo dads like illegal downloading, they've got games to play!

Do these people LOOK like pirates to you?


Now compare to the competition...

Spoiler: PS3 Player

He's so technical he engineered the controller so he can play WITH HIS FEET

Spoiler: Xbox 360 Player

This guy's so good he's torrenting games while on the crapper!

Spoiler: PC Player

With our epic new DRM we will stomp out pir... oh god damnit not again

 

[Danzaivar]

Well another reason why Nintendo can afford to be more relaxed on the issue is that they make the hardware too. Even if someone gets an R4 for their DS and never buys a proper game, they've still bought a DS. Iwata makes some damn good points tho.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Piracy also may not be that big of a problem on the DS because most of it's user base isn't old enough to know how to pirate games...

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

At least one executive gets it. Piracy would, in my opinion diminish if every game released was 5 star quality, with great after release support from developers.

Diminish? Well ... barring the fact that every game can't be awesomely awesome and that not every game is going to have 10 million+ dollar support with 100s of staff on hand. I would argue that Piracy will always be around, but that it's not going to make videogame production any less profitable than it is now.

People are going to steal your shit. But punishing the large number of gamers who don't do this isn't an answer ... it's probably actually more reason why people pirate stuff.

 

[The Journey]

You know, I honestly really dislike just about 90% of the games put out by Nintendo. Repeatedly. Year after year, over and over and over again. I dislike the 'EA Effect' that drives the companies games division.

However, they have one of the best attitudes towards their consumers, especially if this statement here is anything to go by. They've just moved up a notch on my personal, mind constructed and probably soon to be lost or forgotten, scale of 'good guys in the Gaming Industry'.

Gearbox is currently at the top with their attempts to redeem 12 year old pre-orders. Next comes Valve and after that? Well, some other guys then Nintendo.

It isn't finished.

 

[Drexlor]

An exec not blaming piracy OR used games!!!! You have earned my respect Satoru.

 

[theultimateend]

Any DRM software that does prevent the game from being pirated for the first week does correlate to increased sales, how much varies from game to game, but the fact is a given. If they can keep the game from being cracked for a month that's all they really need to catch most of the crowd that would have bought the game if they couldn't download it.

Now how much the game actually makes back (if it even recovers the cost of the DRM software) from these DRM measures is anyone's guess, but if the measures always cost them ridiculous amounts of money and they never saw even a small return I doubt they would still be bothering.

Got the data to back that? Because I have yet to see any statistically significant difference between sales on an "Unhackable system" and sales on a "hackable one."

If the game is good it sells like the second coming of Jesus.

If it is bad it gets ignored or pirated on Occasion.

The correlation of Piracy to lost sales is a loose one that has little Data to back it.

Nice to see at least two successful game makers are finally admitting it themselves.

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1121596044/how-piracy-works

I like it because this is something I said a while back. It's nice to hear your comments by someone who actually deals with the stuff instead of self righteous gamer forum goers (not talking about you of course).

Keeping in mind I don't support piracy, but only because I feel if a game isn't worth the currency of money it isn't worth the currency of time.

Not a moral choice. Just an economical one.

At least one executive gets it. Piracy would, in my opinion diminish if every game released was 5 star quality, with great after release support from developers.

Diminish? Well ... barring the fact that every game can't be awesomely awesome and that not every game is going to have 10 million+ dollar support with 100s of staff on hand. I would argue that Piracy will always be around, but that it's not going to make videogame production any less profitable than it is now.

People are going to steal your shit. But punishing the large number of gamers who don't do this isn't an answer ... it's probably actually more reason why people pirate stuff.

*looks at minecraft* *looks back at your statement about needing 10 million+ dollars or 100s of staff members* *looks back at minecraft*

I...he...it...

Big budget != Good Game.

Generally the opposite because they run out of time, have investors to please (who only know money), and are hobbled into "Graphics first, gameplay later."

Be interested to know how many people from each of those groups bought the game, then downloaded it so that it would work on their modded system along with the rest of the games.

Or am I the only one that likes not dragging 30-50 dollar portable games everywhere and would prefer just to lose a cycloDS.

In the case of the Wii you could play your entire library without having to remove and replace disks all the time (reducing the likelihood of them ever scratching).

I got super excited when PS3 said you could install games, I realize how BIG they are but I thought "finally a step in the right direction". But all it did was nothing but take some time to install. Didn't see faster load times or get the convenience of no disk.

I wish more companies would look at ways of stealing the convenience of these systems. It was the convenience of services like Zune Marketplace that utterly killed any desire I had to "steal" music. At least once they stopped being DRM whores, not a fan of being called a thief by the product I just bought.

Actually curious, who here wasn't offended the first time they went to a movie and that "you are a thief" commercial came on before the movie?

 

[antipunt]

Facing the real issue instead of making (data-unsupported) scapegoats. Dude's got balls.

 

[lobech]

Here in Spain piracy is a crying shame. As far as I know, owners of Nintendo-based game systems do not buy any games at all, they just download them. Not that there is not an advantage to this situation (the chance to play every single game in the market and those that are not available in my country), but this is clearly not a sustainable situation, since it would lead to the disappearance of the platform.

Anyway, thumbs up to Satoru Iwata for not blaming the poor sales to piracy, but to poor quality of some games.

 

[Chewster]

Well yeah. Every second game is fucking shovelware and unless you are buying a specific game made by Nintendo, the quality is likely to be dodgy. Get your Nintendo Seal of Approval house in order and we'll talk.

Actually curious, who here wasn't offended the first time they went to a movie and that "you are a thief" commercial came on before the movie?

The ones I used to really hate were the ones where they'd get some sap set painter to come on and lay his heart bare, talking about how great it is to work in the industry (lie) and the magic of films, and how how pirates were literally stealing the bread from his child's mouth (also a lie).

First, you're unionized, meaning your wages are set and protected and second, everyone in the industry gets paid relatively well, even if the work is shit (which it usually is unless you're a higher up).

Honestly. This shit is like getting a free punch in the throat from the cashier when you go to buy a box of Lucky Charms.