The president of the brand confirms that the company’s horizon does not contemplate the disappearance of its games in physical format, of enormous value for collectors.
Faced with the trend in the video game and entertainment industry in general that encourages prioritizing digital services and products over physical ones to save costs, Nintendo stands out and confirms that the physical format will continue to be of vital relevance in the future. of the company. This was expressed by the president of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa, in a briefing on the latest financial results of the Japanese company.
“Our goal is not simply to increase the share of digital sales, but to maximize overall gaming software sales, including physical software sales. “This policy will remain unchanged in the future,” Furukawa said on May 7.
This does not mean that Nintendo is going to neglect the digital format, far from it. Furukawa acknowledges that the market and digital formats have evolved a lot since the launch of the Nintendo Switch console in 2017.
For this reason, he assures that “at this time, if digital content continues to become more useful and convenient over time, we believe that more consumers will choose digital products with the successor to the Nintendo Switch”, which is why the Japanese developer needs to “improve ease of use for both consumers playing with packaged software and those playing with downloaded versions.” Thus, Nintendo will continue working on the sale of games from its online store, the Nintendo eShop, but it will not stop filling the shelves of electronics stores.
Both PlayStation and Xbox also have their own digital stores, and in the case of physical PS5 and PS4 games, their sales have decreased by 3% year-on-year in March of this year, with more and more users turning to online purchases.
In line with your interests
The decision to continue selling physical titles as they have been doing until now is logical within the company’s strategy. The biggest fans of Nintendo and video games in general value physical copies of games for their collection value, which increases given the ephemeral nature of some releases. Additionally, Nintendo is aware of the number of games customers buy as gifts for friends, family or young children. In these cases, it will always be better to deliver a physical package wrapped as a gift.
The feeling of ownership that physical formats provide is also important, in a strange climate like the current one in which large audiovisual and entertainment companies face criticism and complaints due to the more informal nature of digital products, which may be linked to temporal limitations or other changes over which the user has no control.
In addition, the company still needs to have the support of retail companies, since the consoles do need to be sold in person. Therefore, users will continue to be able to purchase games along with the purchase of the console in the store itself. In all likelihood, users will support this decision by the company, which separates itself from other trends that seek to shift the sales focus from the physical store to online channels, with which to extract a monetary bonus with the sale of extended versions or DLCs. (Nintendo also sells downloadable content of this type.)
