Nintendo doesn't discount games because its "mentality" is always shipping "the best" says former NOA president Reggie Fils-Aimé

Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé has explained why Nintendo doesn't give massive discounts on its games.

Speaking at the NYUGameCenter Lecture Series (highlighted by Stealth40K), Fils-Aimé was asked about Nintendo not following an industry trend of releasing half-baked games-as-a-service titles that are later updated and fixed. He responds: "The Nintendo mentality is, 'we're shipping a game complete. It's ready to play. There's no day one update that's going to take three hours.' And so part of it is it's a different mentality. That is their thinking."

Fils-Aimé likens this to Kyoto craftsmanship, citing that in Japanese history, the city was known for this. Given that Nintendo is headquartered in Kyoto, he explains: "I'm convinced Nintendo as a company has that same type of mentality. We are going to build the best games, we are going to send them out feature complete, and as a result – this is where sometimes customers push back – we don't discount our games.

"Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild never received a price discount from the day it was launched," Fils-Aimé says, adding that while specific retailers may have sold it at a cheaper price at some point, "the company never discounted." He explains: "It's part of this process. We're gonna make it the best we can, we're gonna send it feature complete, and we're gonna charge a fair price and that price is never gonna change."

Granted, Fils-Aimé left Nintendo in 2019, and it's safe to say the attitude surrounding "we're shipping a game complete" has somewhat changed. Notably in the Mario Sports games, Mario Strikers: Battle League – a contender for the worst Mario game ever – launched with less content than the GameCube game released with almost two decades prior, with Nintendo taking a 'we'll fill the games out later' approach to it and the likes of Mario Golf: Super Rush and Nintendo Switch Sports during the 2020s. Even Animal Crossing: New Horizons only received certain major features, like diving and Dream Islands, in post-launch updates, rather than everything being available at launch.

Early Nintendo was a madhouse: "It was very difficult to finish Mario and then get the Mario programmers involved in the final push to finish The Legend of Zelda."