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Nintendo To Sell Old Consoles To China?
drfishy writes "An interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata on IGN hints at the possibility of Nintendo entering the Chinese market with their products soon. The most curious part of the interview is that Satoru Iwata says Nintendo is considering releasing older generation hardware to combat piracy, could this mean the big N is going to start making Super Nintendos again? Will there be new games? How would this fight piracy?"
The cartdrige systems are harder to pirate because it requires more hardware than a CD burner. That alone prevents casual copying of games.
They are using the older (N64 I assume) generation because it was the last cartdrige based system.
Doesn't matter how good the products are, if people want to pirate them, they will.
Now, if the packaging is sweetass, that's a different issue.
The Gameboy Advance is clearly based on the Super Nintendo. Given that many Chinese probably do not even have televisions, having an all in one unit like the GBA is probably a great idea. I doubt we will see the actual console as it once was, the unit will probably be very much like gameboy advance. Perhaps it will have a TV out or something of the kind.
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... cause it's so easy to copy a GameCube Game.
Jayysn
There is a war going on for your mind.
By re-releasing older consoles, Nintendo can shutdown ROM piracy by claiming that the games are actively on the market.
If Nintendo starts manufacturing old hardware again that will mess up the prices of used games in a big way. I we at the mall days ago and they has NESs for 40 bucks, SNES for 30 and N64s for an amount I forget, but cheap. They might have been cheaper than the NESs I dont' remember so well. Bit it was messed up! We've got like 3 NESs in the house. Well actually 1 physically here. I own one that is far away. We won one at a duck hunt tournament (people SUCK at duck hunt!) and my roomate's got one. We gave one to his brother.
Oh yeah, that's another thing. At that very same duck hunt tournament there was a guy who was collecting Mario/Duck Hunt cartridges. He had so many he made a suit of armor out of them. However, he performed very poorly compared to us in the tourney. Apparently he collected so many that the price went from 15 cents to 95 cents a cart in his time. If nintendo manufactures more old Nintendo stuff wont that not work. I mean people can get carts for 95 cents they aren't going to pay more than that. And making more supply just lowers prices.
I'm fairly certain Nintendo will only be manufacturing N64 stuff if anything. They aren't that stupid.
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Having lived in China for three years, I can assure you almost every Chinese household has a TV. Sets are cheap with a domestic 29-inch selling for around $US90.
A Hong Kong-based market research firm recently suggested television set penetration was around 92 percent on the mainland, compared with 42 percent for refrigerators!
All of the major consoles (inc XBox) are available in China as "grey imports". A PS2 sells for about US$200 and an XBox for about $US300. Pirate games galore and easily available for around $US2.50.
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We all know how much harder a 32mb prom image is to toss around the internet than a 640mb sorta-but-not-quite-ISO cd image.
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Well, given that he said "older generation hardware" that pretty much means that carts are a given.
However, all the old Nintendo hardware could be pirated - it's just more expensive and time consuming than it would be with any disc based medium. Also, almost all the common methods of piracy required special hardware.
Honestly, I think Nintendos largest concern is that releasing the GameCube there would result in massive piracy of the special mini-dvd format dics and the release of them to the rest of the world. Nintendo would hate nothing more than a stream of copied media coming out when they've worked so hard (and so far largely successfully) to keep GameCube piracy down.
to think about the children in underdevelopment countries. I'm sure my nephew in China will dump his PS2 once he could have given chance to taste the power of.....an old Nintendo. The Nintendo emulator on his dual Athlon-MP 2600 definitely can't compare to a real one. However Mr. Iwata must take into consideration whether there's enough electricity to power up one Nintendo there, because people are still using dynamo to power up lightblubs.
Exactly what parallel universe is Mr. Satoru Iwata living in?
The only real way I can see this fighting piracy is if they want to go back to cartridge based systems, but why not just make the products good enough that people will actually buy them.
I'm not sure, but is the implication here is that people only pirate games if they aren't good enough to buy? I can maybe see that if you're arguing a "try before you buy" attitude, but it's pretty clear that the people most interested in pirating games are going to do it regardless of how good it is ... in fact, I'd say a great game is more likely to be pirated by your average 15-year-old k3wl w4r3z d00d than a subpar game.
Hypocrisy disclaimer: I download MP3s and will generally not buy an album unless there are at least two (for bargain CDs) or three (full-priced discs) songs on a CD by that band I like. I would, however, gladly pay for those songs if they were available singly in a DRM-free format. I don't know if there is an appropriate analog in the video game world ("I didn't pay $50 for the full game, but I'd pay $10 for just the first three levels if that was available(?)")
Either way, I don't think it's fair to say, "I liked your game ... but not enough to pay for it. The reason I am pirating your games instead of paying you is because I wish it was better, so it's YOUR fault." That sort of reasoning is akin to blaming women for assaults because they were being "too provocative" or some s**t like that ... that train of thought is just wrong.
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I see a lot of people linking cartridges to combat piracy. This is not at all what Nintendo has in mind. People are pirating Nintendo hardware/software because they simply don't exist on the Chinese market. So if you introduce them to the market, some of the people who are pirating Nintendo merchandise will start to purchase it, and piracy will decrease. Granted, in some cases it may be cheaper to pirate, but by giving people what they want, they may be willing to pay for it.
Cartridges are just as easy to copy as CDs with the right hardware. A friend of mine paid $300 Canadian for a blank cartridge (can hold, on average, 8 GBA games), a cartridge copier, and a GBA. He can store a bunch of games on a CD or on his hard drive, and dump them to the blank cartridge whenever he wants to play them. The games are smaller, the cartridge is rewritable (although yes, there are CR-RWs available) and hooks right up to his computer.
Introducing their products on the market won't make copying harder; if anything, it'll make it easier. It's giving people another incentive to not pirate these products that Nintendo is after.
Using older game consoles such as N64 and even SNES/SFC enables schools, particularly in rural areas, to immediately gain the benefits of technology without the cost and maintainence expense associated with traditional PC platforms. We look forward to seeing the results of this experiment in China, and will likely expand to other developing countries if it goes well.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
If there isn't a current working emulator for the N64, there will be (just like everything else). ROMs aren't a problem to dump, so it will actaulyl be EASIER to pirate those than to duplicate the special small GameCube titles. Not sure why Ninetnedo wants to go this route...
Actaully, given reports of their diminishing profitability, I'm not sure why they don't flood China with GameBoys instead. Or maybe that's what "old hardware" meant...
Actually, as another poster pointed out, it is probably more to do with the fact that the games sold in China will probably be a lot cheaper - and mixed with a lot of pirated games. IF the newset console is readily available in China, the pirated games to go along with it will crop up very quick. Thus, people in USA/Australia/Europe would rather import games/pirated games from China, because the latest games for the latest console would be readily available.
Pirating catridges isn't that difficult, and has been done for some time.
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Think about it... suppose they re-release the SNES over there.
Now, think back to the days when *you* were playing SNES. Suppose consoles as powerful as the XBOX, PS2, and GameCube were available elsewhere in the world but they weren't available to you, thanks to your government.
Holy crap! I'd be plotting to overthrown that bastard in a minute!
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Actually I think what he means is that in China you can get burned DVDs and CDs a dime a dozen, so they're afraid to release Gamecube in China. ROMs are much more difficult to copy so they'll release N64 instead.
I don't think it's got to do with preventing ROM piracy since no matter how long a game's been off the market it's still technically illegal to copy it.
Really, I thought that the GameCube had a pretty good way to fight piracy.. they just use a non-standard propritary CD. How can you pirate something that you cannot re-create? There surely is a way, but it's not about the ability it's about the ease of it. If it's easy to pirate a lot of people will do it. If it's hard to pirate, a lot less people will.
This might be a little off-topic, but I got to thinking (uh oh):
Assuming that Nintendo (or anyone else for that matter) re-released an old console & games, what kind of editing would be necessary to make a game fit the culture?
Take for example, the classic NES games Rush N' Attack (say it out loud) and Contra. Those were clearly marketed toward the anti-communism sentiment prevalent in the US in the 80's. How would the Chinese take to that?
Or even something say like GTA3... which very vividly portrays a modern western society (scary thought). For the most part, that's stuff we believe the Chinese can only dream of. What would they think of it? How about games like Wall Street Kid ?
For that matter, what kind of Chinese-only games are there? Damn, I wish I knew more about the culture... I'm sure they would have games that are pure fun in context to them, but would have no chance of being appreciated over here.
~~~
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How's this justification for you: I like the products but I don't like giving up money. So I won't, unless I like the product so much that I want to finance future development of similar products from the same people.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The head of Microsoft's China operations actually suggested the same thing to Microsoft - sell older versions for _alot_ cheaper. Alot cheaper is often what to what people in the developing world be willing, and able, to pay for software. She figured it would create mind-space and make people used to buying legit copies. Yeah, she was fired. I have seen alot of NES-compatible game systems sold in down-scale Chinese apartment stores, and Nintendo probably figures that there is a buck to be made by going in and competing with these fly-by-night manufacturers. Makes sense to me.
"The most curious part of the interview is that Satoru Iwata says Nintendo is considering releasing older generation hardware to combat piracy, could this mean the big N is going to start making Super Nintendos again? Will there be new games?"
Who cares if there will be new games? The very concept of putting NES and SNES hardware and software back on the assembly line is teriffic news as far as I'm concerned!
Nintendo retired these consoles because they had reached the point where their sales didn't justify the cost of manufacturing them any more. But now we have the possibility of introducing these systems to a new, relatively untouched market. A market that may very well fund the continued manufacture of these consoles and cartridges. The NES and SNES markets will (with any luck) be self-sufficient again. Especially when you consider the advances in both hardware and manufacturing in the past decade or so (ie. they're cheaper to make than ever).
And if the cost of manufacturing the older consoles is being justified by the Chinese market, what could they possibly have to lose if they, say, start selling them in North America again? I'd finally be able to have my very own copy of EarthBound!
(WaReZ kiddies: No, ZSNES is not the same. It lets me play the games I wish I had, but I still wish I had them. If you can't understand the difference, I truly pity you.)
(Moral self-righteous twits: No, I will not mortgage my first-born on eBay for a used copy of the game. Nintendo makes no money off the sale of used cartridges. I'll buy it when Nintendo re-releases it.)
Release them here. And get Sega on board - man, I would have killed to have been able to play Warsong on my actual Genesis.
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This is a question I've long had for console makers: Why not create an emulator, package a shitload of games on the same disc as it, and sell it? Hell - you could even offer the
Sure, just like music and movies - there are people who simply wouldn't pay for it.
There's also a lot of people who would. I'll admit, I've downloaded games whose cartridges I don't own. The problem is - I couldn't find those cartridges back in the day. They're impossible to find now.
I have a hard time finding decent Sega CD and Saturn hardware. The games? Well, they're few and far between, aside from the massively craptastic ones. If used game places have a *good* game in stock, they'll have jacked the price up to the point where it's higher than it was when the game was new!
That's just Sega CD. If you look for anything earlier than that, good fscking luck. You're reliant on dodging e-bay fraud and looking in the local paper's classified section.
Selling an emulator and roms would be quite easy for game manufacturers. Hell - look at the lack of cost! No packaging, no cartridge/disc, no printed instruction manual.. Distribution? Toss it on a website and let it cook.
Now, of course, there might be legal issues with distributing games created by another company. (See all those wonderful licensing blurbs on all console games.) However, I think the console manufacturers could throw enough weight around to get game manufacturers to join on the bandwagon if they wanted to.
I was in China in September, and I saw everything there. PS2's, XBoxes, GameCubes, GameBoy Advances, and all of the games.
What's this about -entering- the Chinese market again?
As far as I can see, they're already there.
Somehow I don't think that their sales will increase very much as a result of this...
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I heard some years ago (in the late 1990s) that someone was still manufacturing Commodore 64s for sale in China (or possibly Latin America), where few people could afford modern computers. Anyone know anything about this?
If they're making C64s for mass use these days, how closely are they keeping to the original designs, and how many cheap-enough improvements have they added? Are they building them all on one chip, or using the original small-denomination RAM chips? Do they have any funky modern enhancements, like ZIP drives which pretend to be 1541s or integrated USB ports/IP stacks or whatever?