Topic: For the same title, are iphone apps less expensive than DSiWare games??

As a new DSi XL owner, I am currently searching for the best games to spend my DSiWare points. In searching, I ran across an iphone app review of Flight Control. In this review, it was stated that this app costs 99 cents!! Of course, the DSiWare version costs 500 points!! That's quite a difference! Is this typical? If yes, why are iphone apps less expensive...especially for a rehash of the same game? (Needless to say I do not own an iphone).
Thank You
Merilee

Yes. Much. (On WiiWare and DSiWare)
Examples: Diner Dash, Tomena Sanner, Flight Control, etc etc etc...
The reason is because Apple lets the developers set their own price, from 99 cents to hundreds of dollars whereas Nintendo mandates the price and usually overprices them.

Yeah, but considering the iPhone is much more expensive than the DSi, it's kind of a trade off

I'm guessing Apple doesn't take as much off the top as Nintendo. With so many apps on the app store, there's probably no way they can take the time to figure out pricing themselves, so I'm sure devs have a lot more control over what their apps cost. Nintendo places a fair amount of control on DSiWare and Wii Ware pricing.

Also, on the app store there are frequent sales, and older games, just like in the world of retail, see price drops to stay competitive. There are a fair amount of apps that released at comprable prices to what they cost on DSiWare, but then later dropped to 99 cents. I guess Nintendo feels nobody will buy games on release if they know they'll get a price drop, but on the other hand, games basically only have a couple weeks after release to make the bulk of their sales before they get lost in the shuffle and forgotten about. They can't stay competitive and make large continued sales, because if a game was too expensive for someone on release, they probably won't change their mind about it down the road.

@Swikiet

Yeah, because you're locked into a 2 year contract where you'll be paying around $100 per month.

The 8GB iTouch is a better comparison at $200. It's got a lot more power under the hood and actual functionality outside of gaming. For only $30 more than the DSi, you get a lot more for your money. Darn you Mario Kart and Pokemon...making me spend money on a DSi too. The app store can't really compete with DS retail titles yet.

You still have to pay for the 3G

Almost always--and almost always higher quality. I honestly don't know how Nintendo expects to compete with the Apple App store; Apple has thousands of free Apps...Nintendo has two. And one of them is the Internet channel. Granted, the other is flipnote studio, which is incredible. Don't get me wrong: as a person who doesn't own an iPhone or iPod Touch I really enjoy DSiWare, especially for the Nintendo exclusive stuff, I just think it could be so much more.

Yes all nintendo app are totally more expensives, anyways I will buy doodle jump for 200-500 points if it comes to the dsi ware

But there are some differences I have found, the app download faster in a DSI than in a ipod, as I have seen you can download the dsiware games in lees than 3 minutes, some ipod applications need like 2 hours to download, and they spend much more battery than the dsi ware games.

Also you have the Droid Market that not only has a ton of original apps but everyday iPhone Apps are flooding onto it as well. I grabbed my HTC Hero for $99 and my 3G Plan is only $80 a month for complete unlimited nationwide usage. Considering I was paying $70 for Unlimited Usage on a Razor the upgrade is very cheap and the Apps are incredible for time killers. DSiWare shines because of the few gems like Pictobits, Aura Aura Climber and upcoming Shantae. But on the whole the App stores do in fact put DSiWare to shame. Especially when you consider there are prob 10 Free Games to every DSiWare game available out now, and you will be suprised at how fun some of those free games can actually be.

Nintendo also has a large library of retail games. A better question is how does Apple plan to compete with that?

Oh, I get that. I mean as far as gaming goes, the DS is still infinitely superior. I was just talking about the App store/DSiWare component.

Oh and one thing I must add is that I am on a local network with Cellular South, as none of the major phone retailers can touch the awesome that my phone company is. Ive been with them for 10+ years now and they are phenominal. They are exclusive to the South Eastern US though.

Hey, nintendo probably win more $$ than app, most of the ipods-iphones are cracked and you can get free app, lucky that does not exist in the nintendo ds, especially that there are no viruses.

Would you rather play these games using an actual gaming console or an expensive iPhone where your hand often is obstructing proceedings?

Random gamer rant ALERT!
On another note im I the only one who is bugged by the fact that the Idevices is graphically far superior then the DSi is? I mean I dont have a ipod or iphone but im always checking out you tube videos and shake my head. Honestly graphics arent what I base my gaming purchases on but im like ″I got this awesome portable gaming machine but when it comes to graphics a phone puts the DSi to shame″. I was under the impression that the add power with the DSi would have leveled the playing field some. Is it just the screen resolution thats holding the DSi back or what?

ends random gamer rant

@cheapogamer4life The DS was released in 2004. Apple comes out with a new generation of their devices every year or two. I think that speaks volumes.

And the 3DS is coming out soon, right? I expect it to blow the Apple devices out of the water (in terms of gaming).

Couple of reasons:

Nintendo has a stricter price structure
Nintendo have input on what they should cost depending on amount of content.
Developers/Publishers may want them higher priced(Probably not all but I wouldn't be surprised if Gameloft put them higher and Firemint[Is that right?] said they wanted Flight Control higher priced and Nintendo has approved other games with more content for 200 points)
Prices are artificially low on the iphone, by which I mean many iphone devs put their games very, very low priced because it's hard to get exposure unless you're a big name because of the sheer amount of titles.

EDIT: Also HolyMackerel pretty much covered why they're more powerful than the DS, the DS is ancient compared to the idevices and the DSi only had a small power boost. You've also got to keep in mind that the DS is cheaper and it could be much cheaper but there's no reason to lower the price due to demand.

I haven't heard about DSiWare specifically, but aren't there at least thousands of dollars in other costs such as ESRB rating due to DS being "family friendly?"

You have to get an ESRB rating but it has nothing to do with being family friendly because Nintendo, Sony AND Microsoft require it. Apple's approval process may be quicker than the rest but it's garbage.

[/quote]Nintendo also has a large library of retail games. A better question is how does Apple plan to compete with that?

[/quote]

I, for one, prefer to download the games as opposed to having to deal with all those retail cartridges. You don't have to go searching for what retail store has the specific title you want to buy, you don't have to then drive to that retail store and purchase the title, and then you have to store the cartridge when you are not using it. You can store multiple games on the ipod/itouch and, if Nintendo had been more generous with their memory/storage, you could have stored just as much on the Dsi XL. At least, the DSi XL has an SD slot to store many downloaded games. I can't understand why anyone in this day and age would prefer retail cartridges.