TouchArcade has some nice quotes from Nintendo’s el-presidenté (of North America) regarding cheapo mobile games (reacting to Nintendo 3DS games likely costing 30-to-45 dollars):

I actually think that one of the biggest risks today in our industry are these inexpensive games that are candidly disposable from a consumer standpoint.

Mm. Far better to continue ripping off consumers*. Because that isn’t a risk at all. Also, it really is terrible that plenty of iOS gamers are out there buying games every single day, due to their low cost, rather than one game a month.

Angry Birds is a great piece of experience but that is one compared to thousands of other pieces of content that, for one or two dollars, I think actually create a mentality for the consumer that a piece of gaming content should only be two dollars.

And why exactly shouldn’t a great piece of gaming content only be two dollars? Or, more precisely, why should a great piece of gaming content cost 30 dollars, or 45, or more? (Infinity Blade is six bucks, so is that OK, or is that still too cheap?)

I actually think some of those games are overpriced at one or two dollars but that’s a whole different story.

Oh gawsh! Chuckle! AHO! And so on. You go, el pres, dismissing iOS and its kin with a quip. But here’s the thing: your problem today isn’t myriad games that aren’t worth two bucks—it’s the thousands available that are.

* Incidentally, my all-time favourite Nintendo WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? moment came with Pac-Man (NES Classics) for the GBA. Currently ambitiously priced at 30 quid on Amazon, the game was originally priced at ‘only’ 15 when first released in the UK—for a dodgy port of the NES version of Pac-Man. BARGAIN! Kind of puts iOS gaming into perspective. Hell, it even makes Namco’s crazy iOS Pac-Man pricing almost look sane. (Almost.)