Downloader: Nintendo puts it simply: Mario and his fellow franchise comrades will never appear in an Apple or Google app store

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Nintendo puts it simply: Mario and his fellow franchise comrades will never appear in an Apple or Google app store

Hopefully you've all been keeping up with the E3 coverage. If you haven't, there's an awesome Penny Arcade comic that perfectly sums it up. Basically, Nintendo (and their mob boss US president) rules, Sony has some games that look more realistic than real life, and Microsoft has a dance game that will no doubt result in some hilarious YouTube videos of fat white people wobbling around in front of their TVs.

In other news, however, Gizmodo's Mark Wilson asked Nintendo's VP of Sales and Marketing, Cammie Dunaway, whether she could "imagine selling a Nintendo game in an app store -- either Google's or Apple's." Rather than simply saying 'no', here's what she had to say: "You know, I really can't. Our intellectual property like Mario like Zelda -- those our just our crown jewels."

What the Gizmodo story fails to highlight is how similar the Nintendo and Apple business models are -- they both rely on exclusive, proprietary hardware with tied-in software to produce large profit margins. Don't forget, Apple is actively trying to scrape a few percent from Nintendo's handheld gaming monopoly -- if it ever listed its games on Apple's App Store, Nintendo would be shooting itself in the foot with both barrels.