In an interview with Polygon, Reggie Fils-Aime said that if developers and publishers are worried about used games sales affecting new game sales, then they should just make better games. If the games are good, people won't want to trade them in. In fact, he said that Nintendo hasn't really seen a problem with their games getting traded in because people continue to play them.
"The consumer wants to keep playing Mario Kart. The consumer want to keep playing New Super Mario Bros. They want to keep playing Pikmin. So we see that the trade-in frequency on Nintendo content is much less than the industry average – much, much less," Fils-Aime said. "So for us, we have been able to step back and say that we are not taking any technological means to impact trade-in and we are confident that if we build great content, then the consumer will not want to trade in our games."
The Nintendo of America president also emphasized that it is important for publishers to support the used games market, because selling a used game often goes toward buying a new game.
"We have been very clear, we understand that used games are a way for some consumers to monetize their games," he said. "They will buy a game, play it, bring it back to their retailer to get credit for their next purchase. Certainly, that impacts games that are annualized and candidly also impacts games that are maybe undifferentiated much more than [it] impacts Nintendo content."
Fils-Aime hasn't said anything that consumers have already said, but it's refreshing and well, interesting, to hear a higher-up of a game company echo the same thoughts.
