Dear Reader:

You are viewing a story from GN Version 4.0. Time may not have been kind to formatting, integrity of links, images, information, etc.

Iwata talks new digital push and how it will/won't impact retailers' bottom line

by rawmeatcowboy
01 May 2012
GN Version 4.0
It is a misunderstanding that the wholesale price of digital software will be identical to that of packaged software. As I mentioned earlier, it is a fair business transaction that, without taking any inventory risk, retailers don’t get the margin equivalent to the one they can get when they take inventory risk in selling packaged software. Therefore, the retail price of digital software isn’t necessarily converged with the wholesale price. There are several types of retailers; a retailer that offers products at comparatively high prices but provides good services and is in a convenient location, or a retailer that only focuses on offering products at lower prices than others do. I expect to see sound competition among retailers that take advantage of their strengths as they have done so far. In that sense, I don’t think our proposal on selling digital software will instantly pull a trigger that leads to cutting retailers’ profits to the limit. I also don’t think it should be this way in the future. - Satoru Iwata

Link