Nintendo: mobile games are bad for the industry, except Angry Birds

By Jeffrey Van Camp February 8, 2011

Angry Birds has made the leap from mobile to the Nintendo 3DS and Wii, but Nintendo believes it may be the exception rather than the rule. Speaking about the recent announcement that Angry Birds would be hitting the company’s new handheld, NOA President Reginald Fils-Aime didn’t mince words, arguing that many mobile games are overpriced and are a threat to the video game industry as a whole, reports CVG.

“I catually think that one of the biggest risks today in our gaming industry are these inexpensive games that are disposable from a consumer standpoint,” said Fils-Aime, who is known to speak his mind.

“Angry Birds is a great experience but that is one compared to thousands of other pieces of content that for one and two dollars actually create a mentality for the consumer that a piece of gaming content should only be two dollars,” said Fils-Aime. “I think that some of these games are overpriced for one or two dollars…The fact of the matter is that we create compelling content. We’re an entertainment company and we believe that 35-40 dollars for a great piece of Nintendo 3DS content is an appropriate price.”

Is he right?

While there are many mobile games that are overpriced for $2, many would argue, that there are simply more games all together. There are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of games for the Nintendo DS and Wii, but hundreds of thousands of games available on mobile platforms. Mobile has lowered the barrier for developers who don’t have the budget to develop for systems like the 3DS. And while the average DS game is likely better than the average mobile game, some would argue that many DS and Wii games are overpriced for what they offer.

Do you agree with Fils-Aime?

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Jeffrey Van Camp

Former Digital Trends Contributor

As DT's Deputy Editor, Jeff helps oversee editorial operations at Digital Trends. Previously, he ran the site's…

Deals

Target throws in a free 3DS game of your choice when you buy a Nintendo 2DS

nintendo 2ds free game bundle deal 2

The Nintendo 3DS looks to be entering the twilight of its life now as the iconic Japanese game maker has shifted focus to its wildly popular Switch console. That might be sad news for owners of the 3DS and its cheaper two-dimensional sibling, the 2DS, but for those who haven’t ever owned one of these fantastic handhelds, it also offers opportunities for deals on one of them, like this high-value bundle offer from Target which gives you a Nintendo 2DS handheld system,
a copy of New Super Mario Bros. 2, and a second game of your choice
-- all for $80.

Following the release of the original 3DS, Nintendo responded to criticism and skepticism regarding the handheld’s stereoscopic 3D feature by re-vamping the technology with the New 3DS and releasing an alternative, the Nintendo 2DS, which lacked stereoscopic 3D altogether. This particular Nintendo 2DS has a hinge-less design and is actually the only one currently available in North America featuring the smaller screens that are similar in size to the original DS and 3DS handhelds, making it a fine alternative to the XL models for gamers who find those to be too bulky.

Gaming

Hades 2: release date prediction, trailers, gameplay, and more

Melinoe standing in a stone circle.

Just like Zagreus' never-ending quest to escape the Underworld in Greek mythology, it seems we too are destined to continue fighting through new levels of demons and monsters in the sequel to the amazing roguelike Hades. We're not complaining, as that game was one of the best games released in 2020, and no one expected a sequel at all, let alone one announced so soon. Hades 2 will be the first sequel studio Supergiant Games have ever made, and it makes sense given how successful and popular the first game ended up being. Aside from some notable exceptions like Rogue Legacy 2 and Spelunky 2, not many roguelikes ever get a direct sequel, so there's a lot of mystery surrounding how Hades 2 will be different from the first game. But there's no need to dive into the depths of the Underworld yourself in search of answers, as we've pulled all the information we could from the jaws of Cerberus.
Release date

Hades 2 entered early access on May 6, 2024.

Computing

Manor Lords performance guide: best settings, recommended specs, and more

Running around a Manor Lords village in third-person.

Manor Lords is the most wish-listed game on Steam at the time of this writing, and from my early impressions, it's an excellent medieval village management simulator. It's like Banished, but taken up a notch. But as impressive and fun as it is already, it's still an Early Access game, which means getting it to run at its best requires a little finesse with the settings.

But you don't need to spend hours painstakingly adjusting your seeings and benchmarking the game, because we've done that for you! After our rigorous testing, we've found the best settings for Manor Lords to give you peak performance so you can enjoy the grubby details of this dark ages setting.
The best settings for Manor Lords
Manor Lords is an immersive single-player experience, so while our settings recommendations are designed to improve performance beyond just setting everything to the maximum or leaving them at defaults, we aren't going to make major sacrifices to visual quality just for a few frames per second (fps).