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Pricing For Retro Games on the Wii
schnikies79 writes to mention an Ars Technica article revealing the pricing scheme for retro content on the Wii. From the article: "Iwata revealed that games for Nintendo's "virtual console" that will allow Wii owners to play old titles on their consoles will be priced at ¥500 and ¥1,000, roughly US$4.50 to US$8.99. For reference, classic retro games for the Nintendo GameBoy sold for upwards of US$35 for some titles, US$19.99 for others. Uptake was understandably low, as gamers were reticent to pay that much for old content." The piece goes on to say that they're ramping up DS production to meet command, and that connectivity with the DS will be a major selling point for the console when it releases.
...Are we paying attention?? You can make millions and make your customers happy without gouging your customers.
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Unless you live in Soviet Russia. I hear there they really -did- have command-side economics.
-theGreater.
If they're going to include some of the old titles from SNES for sale, I would gladly pay $5 or $9 for it. Some games - Super Mario World, Super Mario RPG, Link to the Past, et cetera - were and are hours and hours of great gameplay. And at that price point, I'm sure they'll sell like mad.
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Yay now I get to play with vintage wii and all for a decent price too!
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
So thats what, £3-6 after factoring in the "we get screwed" tax? Not too shabby, I have to say...
I really was not expecting to purchase a Wii when I first heard about it. However, after the excellent showing at E3, plus the news that the console will likely be $200-$250 at launch, as well as this news that games will be exceedingly moderate in terms of the retro downloadables... it's definitely going to be on my wish list for Christmas (and if I don't get it, I'll of course buy it.) Nintendo is seemingly making all the right moves right now... Congrats to them. Good marketing, good development, and most importantly right now, good pricing scheme so far. It's really a rock-solid console right now.
"The piece goes on to say that they're ramping up DS production to meet command" (from the summary)
Unless the definition of 'command' has drastically changed recently, shouldn't that be demand?
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Considering some of the outlandish pricing for cell phone games (which are choppy and short in comparison to console games), this really doesn't sound all that bad.
Anyone else addicted to this game? In my opinion its one of the most well made games of all time. For something so simple, theres so much to it. Any word if it will be available? It would be awesome if we could play Mario Kart online...it is possible with emulators but it is really laggy and not a whole lot of fun.
It seems that they tend to price the games higher than their age reflects in value. Wouldn't it be a better idea to sell games as collections and then sell them for a midline amount? I might not pay $20-30 for an old Zelda game, but I might pay $30-50 for a bunch of them in a collection.
I have to say, nintendo is serious about taking a chunk out of both MS and Sony in this round. They are getting my money, that much I can tell you. Just for the zelda titles alone.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
they're ramping up DS production to meet command
What command? Seriously, don't people proof-bread anything anymore?
But on a more serious note, I was thinking that these games would be available free of charge with the system, from an online database, bummer. I guess I would be willing to part with a few bucks to play some party classics, like techmo bowl, bomberman and dr. mario
First you animate. Then you SUSPEND!!!
DS connectivity is all well and good, but there's a new Crystal Chronicles coming out for the Wii. If they require multiple DSes for multiplayer mode, God and Nintendo will not be enough to save Square/Enix from my wrath...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
What with the price point for the unit and now access to back catalogue at a great price it is looking more and more like Nintendo is going to have a great success on its hands.
:-)
The strategy of ignoring latest greatest visuals and focusing on fun gameplay and moving it out the door at great prices is going to put this unit in the homes of the families with kids under... say 12y/o.
Win the hearts of the next wave of gamers and they will be in a great position when the next generation of console comes along (e.g. ps4,xbox 720 & wiiii)
The original SNES Mario Kart is probably the greatest console game ever written. My dad and I still spend hours in Battle Mode.
The article should say new games developed just for the virtual console will be between 500 and 1000 yen? Not the classic games that the virtual console will also offer?
Just how much of their literally thousands upon thousands of titles are they going to make available for download? I wonder how they worked out licensing with all the private companies that originally release these games? You know what's funny is that even though I already have an emulator and pretty much every rom ever, I migh actually buy a couple of these just to have em on the console- but only because they are priced fairly. Nintendo has done well to sway into the publics favor.
I was just about to sell my DS too(not a portable game player), good thing I read this article.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
What command? Seriously, don't people proof-bread anything anymore?
I, for one, welcome our new DS supply increasing overlords.
Working stiffs like me, mid to late 20s, and a nice Gaussian distribution around me, we eat this stuff up. 40 years from now Nintendo is going to still be rereleasing 8 bit Mario Brothers onto whatever the game platform of the day is, and I'm still going to be paying for it every time it comes out, plus a nice contour with inflation. When I'm 60 years old, hopefully a bit vested, and starting to slow down a bit, think I'll toss down 200 bucks in 2040 dollars to regain 3 hours of my youth? Those damned MIDI tracks so far etched into my brain that it's literally part of my Id? That erotic twinge I get when I rescue the Princhess Toadstool (Peach?) TMI? PERHAPS! But the truth has been spoken. I might very well have a Triforce on my gravestone, and I bet more of you are with me! Don't deny your digital heritage!
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What is interesting to me about this is that they do not seem to be charging significantly differently for an NES game than for an N64 game. I was originally expecting an N64 game on Virtual Console would cost several times as much as an NES game. Apparently that's not how it works.
I'm pretty happy with these prices, $5-$9 is about how much you would normally expect to be paying anyway for almost any SNES or Genesis game, or almost any NES game worth playing, at this point if you were to buy the cartridges used. For some of the titles that have gotten harder to find, like Kid Icarus or the original Final Fantasy, $5-$9 is an absolute steal...
Now let's just hope they offer an appropriately large selection of titles.
...we'd be better off with those retro-5-in-one joysticks that already come with classic arcade games that you now can pick up for 5 dollars - Hardware and games included + approval from the original companies.
Ya got to do better than that Nintendo.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The line with the 'command' problem wasn't in my original submission.
Gone!
Now EVERYONE will be able to bask in the glory that is Shaq Fu for $9!
While Lemmings, Need for Speed and others are being re-re-re-re-launched and sold at EUR50 a piece for the new PSP, Nintendo comes up with this. how clever.
And it gets rated +5 Insightful...
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
They make a big deal about the Gameboy retro games being more expensive than Wii's retro games will be. That makes sense, though, as the actual COST of a Wii retro game is a lot less.
No cartridge/cd
No box
No shipping
No marketting
Hmm... that's a lot of savings right there.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Proof-bread?
I hope that's not a cool slang the kids have that I just missed.
Because then I would be the douchebag, and not you for failing to proof-breed your own proof-braiding post.
Excite Bike for less than TEN dollars? SWEET!!
I think DS/Wii connectivity is great. However, with all that the Wii offers, I don't see as big of a benefit as the Gamecube/GBA link may have been.
Plus, look at the Gamecube/GBA connection. We have... what, six games that use it? And most, if not all, are made by Nintendo? Some other games offer bonus stuff if you connect two games via the cable, but that's it.
Not that you can't do great stuff with a Wii/DS connection. Think of having a tactics RPG game with three of your friends. The upper screen shows stats, the lower screen uses the stylus to place troops or whatever, and you could use the microphone to shout instructions that need to be quickly executed. Or how about Tetris Wii, where your next piece is available only on your DS screen?
Plus, depending on how they set it up, you might be able to use a DS and a Wii for the same player, though that would get complicated, fast.
I wouldn't make it a main component, but I'm sure they'll find a few creative ways to use the functionality. Besides, if you made it a major part, you'd have to make an ad campaign for that. The DS slogan is "touch is good".
Do you really want signs that say "Touching your Wii is good"? (Yes, I went there.)
Anyway, the pricing sounds great for the old games. It will probably translate to $5 and $10. Does anyone know what they refer to? The article seems to be lacking if that will be the SNES and N64 (respectively), or NES/SNES and N64, etc.
My brother and I were having a discussion about this the other. He was convinced that Nintendo wouldn't be able to sell their old games at more than a couple bucks a piece. I thought 5-10 seemed reasonable. My brother, 18, didn't understand that there are millions of mid-20's people who grew up on these games and have plenty of disposable income. As I have already purchased Zelda III and original Metroid for my game boy advance, I knew better.
This is going to be a gold mine for them.
According to a few posts on the arsforums there and a few webtranslations the article should say new games developed just for the virtual console will be between 500 and 1000 yen, not the classic nes/snes/n64 games that will be available on the virtual console as well. There was another article a few days back, explaining that 3 people should be able to put a game together in a few weeks and sell it on the console for around 5$, can't find it right now though.
So basically what you are saying that Nintendo after years of charging full price of decade old games finally lowered the price to a mera 5 dollars for games that are a few megabytes and cost next to nothing to distribute and for wich they don't have to pay any license fees?
Oh yeah. They ain't gouging. They just decided to reduce themselves to raking it in.
It is a smart business move but don't make them out to be some kind of gaming heroes. A game 10 years old that cost only a few megabyte of bandwidth to distrubute does not deserve a 4.50 price tag. They might be able to charge it but lets face it, the markup on that must make Apple blush. Hell, it would make Sony blush.
I notice this problem with people talking about digital downloads. 1 dollar/euro for an iTune song? I am sorry, you just skipped all the costs of distrubuting and stocking CD's and I don't see any reduction in the cost of an album? And it is only because Jobs knows exactly how much you can get away with that the RIAA doesn't get its way and raises the price even higher. Where are the cost savings going? As if I need to ask.
At least with the retro games for the various gameboys you got the excuse of the cost of the catridge, and distrubtion/stocking costs.
Love the fact that you can play all the old games without needing a ton of old consoles etc etc but Nintendo is going to laugh all the way to the bank. More power to them but that don't make them into some kind of heroes for me.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So, Nintendo was charging too much, it didn't work out, now they've dropped the price. THE MONSTERS!
Sony would have said, "See! Emulation has caused our lackluster sales! Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of law!"
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
As of June 1st, EBGames and GameStop in the USA stopped accepting PS1 and N64 games. The pricing explains the need to discontinue collecting antiques from the customers. There's no way the B&M stores can compete with the relatively lower price of the Wii Virtual Console.
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Xbox 360 Controller + ZSNES, but Original Smash Bros and Goldeneye might be worth it.
"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of law!"
The mental image that conjures is of a dog in a suit and tie howling "SUUUUEEEEEEEEE" at the moon....
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
I was looking forward to a price scheme like:
NES/GB: $.99 each
SNES: $2.99 each
N64: $4.99 each
GC: $9.99 each
I guess I will have to hang on to my NES, SNES, and GC and associated games for awhile longer.
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I figured $1 to $5, not $5 to $10. At those prices, it's not much more to pick up the actual cartridge (except for stuff like Chrono Trigger). I mean, seriously, it's emulation on a fast platform and a smidge of bandwidth. These prices are nuts. I guess the price might come down once the service is launched in the states, but I doubt it. My guess is they're trying to establish a high price point from the get go so people are used to paying it down the line. Worked for iTunes I guess.
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What I want, and I hope they impliment, is a way you could put a serial number for a game you already own that would allow you to download it for free to play on your Wii console. I know my NES is dying and I don't own an SNES anymore, but I still have some games for it. Plus the improved quality on the N64 games would be awesome.
... indefinately
I know a lot of people have bad memories when the term "GCN-GBA Connectivity" comes to mind. Granted, I had about 7 friends who had GBAs/SPs and loved Crystal Chronicles, so we actually had enough enough to run two whole FFCC consoles at once, but I recognize that the majority (read: almost everyone else in existence) couldn't even get 3 other people plus themselves together on a regular basis. Four Swords was about the only other game that I thought utilized the GBA in a pretty decent way that wasn't gimmicky or useless. However, I have high hopes for the DS-Wii Connectivity. For one, the connection is wireless, so that eliminates the need for the $15 cable that most people complained about having to go buy, despite it being packed in with Crystal Chronicles and Four Swords Adventures. Secondly, the DS is a much more advanced system, with a Download Play written right into the BIOS for ease of sharing game data. Lastly, the DS has a much better control interface than the GBA, with four face buttons instead of two and a touch screen for control schemes that can't always be easily mapped to a traditional control setting. Plus, I think Nintendo's learned their lesson about forcing people to have an expensive portable in order to play the multiplayer function of a game. Well, at least I hope they have.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
but did anyone listen to the press confrence? the 500-1000yen was for NEW vc games, not the emulated stuff.
I know, probably a redundant post, but, I'm finding it's easy to justify the purchase of a Wii just for the retro games. A lot of N64 games I missed out on don't run so good in emulators. I never got a chance to play the first Paper Mario... Also, I'm one of those heathans that never played Chrono Trigger. I'm hoping it'll be available. If not, I can play it on my computer, but it never feels as legit...
"I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove."
this is just a 'bonus feature' from Nintendo to what already much more anticipated game console relative to its two competitors, at least in terms of gameplay n funfactor.
Folks who can't not play their retro games will be happy (despite maybe some grunts over the price), and those who dont will too be happy for not having to pay extra for backward compatibility..
dontchathink?
new games released via the virtual console. If the guy who submitted it had read the commentary on the Ars story, he would known that this is not correct. They have not yet come out with the price, japanese or otherwise, for the older games.
I know depending on conversion rates is not a good idea, but $5 retro games seem a little expensive to me. I was hoping for the iTunes $0.99 model, personally - at least, if they decide to do sales. Some sort of monthly "all-you-can-eat" would be a good deal, too. But the problem with $5 is that it begins to be real money - sure, I'd pay $5 for Mario 3, but I wouldn't try an obscure NES game I had never heard of. For $0.99, or $5-10 a month, I'd play anything.
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I was convinced about the Wii when I saw their E3 presentation, but now I see that there are more and more online services and things that really extend the value of the console just for having it plugged into the internet. Mind you, these games are fairly expensive for what they are (I'll admit to grabbing a torrent full of NES ROM's at one point), but I'd still pump some money into them. The service is there, I'm sure it'll be extremely easy to use, and really, some of these games are so rare these days that you'd be hard-pressed to find them on eBay for less than $100 (NES Zelda series, for example, especially the Famicom versions; SNES Mario RPG and LoZ:LttP can garner over $400+). I'd gladly pay the amount of inflation on a copy of Super Mario Bros 3 when I can get some of these games - Legitimately - for such a low price, especially with the possibility of playing online (PLEASE say we can play them online) without the hassles involved with PC emulation online.
Scarcity and being poor are no longer excuses to download ROM's! The world has been doomed!
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
I didn't notice if they made mention of improving the graphics for these old games (much like mario All-Stars for the SNES when they updated all the games with better sprites).
I remember it either being a Rumor or Nintendo did actually confirm it for "Select" games.
Personally I would feel better paying $4.50 - $9 per game if I knew I was getting a "new" game, I don't want to pay $4.50 for Kid Icarus and it looks identical to the original NES version, I would like it if they left the game alone but updated the sprites of the game to be esthetically pleasing.
Normally graphics don't bother me but going back that far after playing GBA, 2D DS games and SNES games, opening up an NES game and playing it everything just seems to bland.
one problem with that is that all of the sony PS1 games are entire CD images (500-600 mb)
Not always. A lot of PS1 games are a 60 MiB data track with a whole bunch of Compact Disc Digital Audio (aka "Red Book") tracks. The PS1 emulator could emulate the CD player by re-encoding the audio to ATRAC (MiniDisc format), causing the whole download to shrink to 120 MiB, which also happens to be the size of the largest Nintendo DS games at the moment.
If Id Software wanted to publish Doom on Virtual Console, the company would probably start with one of the OpenGL engine ports and then make the changes necessary to get it going on the Wii.
Nintendo has some up-front costs for setting up the service, and some minimal costs to keep it running. Basically, they're sending you free bits (for them) for your money.
I wouldn't go so far as to bet the cost of a PS3 that the bits are necessarily free to Nintendo. I'd imagine that at least some of the credited staff get residuals.
For reference, classic retro games for the Nintendo GameBoy sold for upwards of US$35 for some titles, US$19.99 for others.
If you all would have bought the fucking E-Reader, we would have had more NES games for $4.
Unlike the NES, Game Boy, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, and Wii, the Nintendo DS does not support video tape recording of game play to allow a player to review a multiplayer match to learn from his or her mistakes more easily. In fact, the DS is the only Nintendo multiplayer video game system that does not allow tape recording. (Virtual Boy and Game & Watch were not multiplayer.)
That's what happens when your only proofing is MS Word, you spell things right in the wrong context and it won't get flagged. Technology can only help so much. Having another person proofread is always a good idea.
According to IGN this only applies to newly created virtual console games, not necessarily classic NES, SNES, and N64 games. That's a pretty crucial detail.
Don't forget also that the Wii will not interoperate with your Sony memory cards, or Sony BluRay discs, or Sony controllers! Hell, this Wii is so pathetic I wouldn't even use it as a doorstop on my Millenium Falcon.
Oh yeah, I'm sure Nintendo bends over backwards for "unauthorized" emulation.
FC Closer
Note, however, that it looks like there will be plenty of free 1st party games, which really changes the overall picture, IMO.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I just don't get it. What has got people SO FUCKING excited about Nintendo right now? They've got some neat, new ideas, but can you honestly say they've proven them at this point? Different doesn't make it good. Novelty doesn't last long, so after it wears off, there had better be some goddamn substance.
Frankly, I am not excited about any of the big 3 this time around. Sony's console is too expensive. Nintendo's is too *underpowered. Microsoft's has the blandest games... Seriously.
As someone who is only interested in the games, I will not say at this point which of these silly company's I will be "giving" my money to. That's just... stupid, IMO.
* The first person who derides raw horsepower and graphical capability gets a punch in the groin. We know already, it's not all about graphics...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Somehow I think that selling a "Zelda" collection of old Zelda titles, or something similar, would work a lot better than a music album. The concept is rather different, as I was suggested a collection of known and well-liked titles, whereas albums tend to sneak in a known and like song with unknown and crap filler.
Damnit, I don't know HOW many sites this has been on today, but the $5 and $10 is NOT for retro games. It is pricing for NEW games distributed VIA the Virtual Console. Do a google search and you'll likely find hundreds of sites, or go to IGN for the most official news.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/711/711629p1.html
I'd be willing to pay this much per if the Wii's emulation SW is capable of fast forward - which in, IMO, one of the most bitchinest features of modern emulators.
Let me just point out that certain retro games (Kirby Super Star, for instance) regularly sell on eBay for over $50. An upper cap of $8.99 is a deal on such games.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
I think it's the same thing Apple's done to it's small, but rabid fanbase. They've somehow brainwashed them, either through subliminal messages in advertising, or something in the vertical sync of the old games they played in 1992..
I honestly can't think of any other reason why people droll all over Nintendo when, if the same thing had been mentioned for Microsoft or Sony, they'd deride it as being a rip-off, or boring, or done before, etc.
I find very little objectivity or even logical thinking in most of the conclusions people are reaching about these products.
Twilight Princess. Super Smash Bros. Brawl with internet play. That'll do it for me.
If they release other games for the Wii, fine, but I'd get it just to play those two.
"Bother," said Pooh, as lightning knocked out hi%#&(F*@NO CARRIER
I skimmed the article but didn't see any mention as to where the money goes.
After 10 years or more. Could there still be copyright fees or royalties attached to some of those games? So if I spend $50+ buying every game Squaresoft made for the SNES, will a chunk of that money go to them?
It might be interesting to see how some publishers from the past (asssuming they are still around) would respond from the new influx of money from royalties on older games.
Just a thought.
The only real downside about the ROMs for the Wii, is that it won't be possible to buy Japanese released games from the past and apply translation patches like you can with current PC game ROMs.
Fair enough.
:) I've half-seriously thought about wallpapering a wall with SMB/Duck Hunt carts, it would cost me less than $100 - and I've seen enough copies to do this in the past year alone.
Let me counter-point out that you can by some old retro games literally by the pound. Here are a few examples from the NES:
Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt
Super Mario Bros 3
1943
Contra
Top Gun
Hell, Zelda. Million seller.
Here's some from the Atari VCS:
Combat
Asteroids
Pac-Man
E.T.
And here's some from the Sega Genesis:
*ANY* sports title. There were over 200.
For everyone thinking $5-10 is a good deal for old games, take it from a collector: it's not. The overwhelming majority of cartridge-based games can be found for far less than this. There are maybe a dozen NES games that really have a lot of value (over $20), other than imports/prototypes/3rd party games, ie: things that only ever saw a few hundred copies in North America. Odds are you've never heard of these games, and odds are you couldn't care less about playing them.
For every rare/valuable NES game, there are a hundred common games that can be had for $1-$5 a piece, often less. I've been able to buy copies of SMB/Duck Hunt for a dime a piece. Same goes for SMB3. There are a LOT of copies of these games out there, and other than us hardcore nerds, very little demand. Cartridges almost never fail, so each and every one of these games is still good as new. Finding a console isn't very hard either, it's more the space that becomes an issue
Millions of people owned these games back in the day. Millions still do. And most people don't play them anymore. The hardcore among us already own them, keep their consoles in good shape, and play them regularly.
I'm sure Nintendo will make a mint on this (the Wii's just too cool!), but I wonder just how large of a group of people there is that will really pay $10 for a game they could buy at a local flea market for 50 cents. Hell, half the casual gamers I know still have their old NES in a closet, they just can't be bothered to pull it out. Pay $10 to play what they already own?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I remember back when games were 25c, I could spend an afternoon in an arcade for $5. These days, $5 gets you 5 plays at most. You can waste your $5 in less than 10 minutes.
Shorter: "Damn that nintendo, what with its new products and its goofy shenanegans! Get off my lawn!"
Leaving aside the absurdity of cussing out people for being excited about something, you obviously haven't been paying a lot of attention to what's been going on with the Wii.
Super Mario Galaxy showed a polished and well-done platformer using the Wii's controls. Verdict: not gimmick, and can be a pattern for future platformers to expand on.
Metroid Prime 3 showed us how much better having something to point with is than the current (and absolutely ridiculous) dual-analog setup for controllers. Verdict: not gimmick, a good way to refine an existing genre to take advantage of the new technology.
Madden Wii and Wii Sports showed us how motion can intuitively work with sports games. Verdict: Kind of spotty, but the premise just makes sense, and even EA's sold on it. Juking should be shifting your controller, not trying to locate the second trigger (but don't hit the first trigger, or else you'll dive!)
Red Steel showed us what we all knew: we all want to be that loser kid on the star wars video. Verdict: Swords are freaking awesome.
The other thing you forget is that Nintendo doesn't need third parties. Without them, it won't capture the market. However, the N64 and GCs suffered massive third-party support problems, and are still very, very worthwhile systems just with Nintendo's offerings (Zelda, Fire Emblem, Mario, Paper Mario, Metroid, Mario Kart, Mario Sports, Pokemon, Smash Bros.). That's support for the console built-in.
You also forget that this idea makes sense. Ever see a new player sit down with a game? They instinctively try to move the controller through space to get the desired effect. Even experienced gamers do this under stress or when a quick reaction is called for.
You also say that since you are only interested in games, you won't talk about committing to a console company. Not only is this impossible, it's a bit silly. You need to give them money to play games. You're going to find games you like more than others, and since that game (or another you would want in the future) carries with it a high probability of being an exclusive, you're paying the console company to play the game. You can't separate the two, as you suggest. You might be picking it for a different reason than a hypothetical straw man (games vs. brand loyalty), but in the end, you're giving the same amount of dedication to the company by making an expensive (and at least temporarily exclusive) choice. The only difference is that you can duplicitously create enough room to look cool and snark at people getting excited about things that, just maybe, might be worth it for them to be excited about.
They may not be able to crack down on individuals sharing files with their friends, or for that matter public P2P services like BitTorrent, but Nintendo can crack down on Rom sites. Rom sites like romnation and rom-world have to self-censor to avoid getting in trouble with the Entertainment Software Association.
Many of the most popular games are protected by the ESA, and sites that refuse to take down protected ROMS risk getting a cease-and-desist. Games like the Final Fantasy series, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, the Mario series, the Metroid Series, and just about any of the more popular Nintendo series are nowhere to be found on mainstream ROM sites; a search for them will show no results on some sites, or on others, tell you that they're ESA protected. (For what it's worth, Sega's most popular franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog, isn't ESA protected.) It's already nearly impossible to find a game like, say, Super Mario World on the web without using peer-to-peer services, and with Nintendo launching it's Virtual Console with the Wii, the ESA anti-piracy rules could soon grow to include more games for the NES, SNES and N64.
That's a technical limitation, those carts are expensive to produce and bring into stores (that's why everyone went with the PS1 instead of the N64). A download system has much lower costs to Nintendo. They're probably making the same profit per unit on both offerings.
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That is a damn good price range, and it further backs up my decision to buy a Wii as my next generation machine.
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I'm curious to know -- will Gamecube games be playable by the Wii? If so, do I have to download them from this "classics" service, or can I use my pre-existing discs?
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
You guys know what would be even better? If Nintendo sold a dev kit that anyone can buy at a reasonable price and we'd all be able to see our games in the online market so that Wii owners just pay $5 and they get our game. We could get $4 and Nintendo could get $1 and everybody is happy. Let natural selection dictate who gets rewarded for their work.
ZDNet reports: "Sony expects to post a 100 billion yen ($884 million) operating loss at its game division in the current fiscal year due to costs related to the PS3 launch." ... "PlayStation 3, which is scheduled to hit the U.S. market on Nov. 17, will be priced at as much as $599, while Xbox 360's premium version that is already in stores costs $399." More information here
a sony fanboy on slashdot? Now I've seen everything!
Id assume that the lower price point is for NES games. For me, the prices seem too much. I have paid the same amount of money for much newer games, and actually revieved a physical copy. Since Nintendo isnt actually selling anything physical and there are no longer any deleopement costs to cover, this is 100% profit for them. They should be selling them cheaper. The majority of games dont age this well, and Id say that at least 99% of NES games are a fun nostalgia trip.. for around 15 minutes.
Where? Show me? Because, besides the dumbass aging parents selling stuff at garage sales, NES carts usualy go for $50+ on online auctions. That means, any time that I'm looking for a specific NES game, I have to pay that price.
That means nothing. They're simply that size because that's all they needed to be. Hundreds of hours of manpower still went into those games, and some are extremely enjoyable to play. People don't judge the quality of a game on how much space it took up on the media, but by how much fun it is to play.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
... than download ROMs. And this for entirely selfish reasons - I've played ROMs on my PC and the experience is crappy - the badly stretched graphics and the crappy keyboard control just don't compare to playing it with a proper controller, on hardware with the correct refresh rate and output resolution attached to a big TV. Five dollars to get this experience hassle free seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Actually, the classic NES games on GBA sold very well. Yes, they were priced a bit high, part of the reason for that is the cartridges are expensive to manufacture, tho. Still, should've been a bit cheaper, IMO. But the fact remains that despite the high price they sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
I agree with the very silent minority on /. that these prices are too high. $4.50 to $9 for an ancient game you can probably get cheaper as a cartridge second-hand?
But what pricing would be right?
IMHO, pricing should be based primarily on the emulated console, i.e.:
$1 for NES
$2 for SNES
$4 for N64
Possibly slightly (upto 100%) higher prices for the most popular titles. These prices are about the maximum I'd be willing to pay (at current rates, I won't be buying any retro game on Wii).
What pricepoint would be right for the other people who think pricing is too high?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Up to 9 dollars for 15 year old games? You can get relatively recent (4 year old) PC games for a fiver, yet somehow, Nintendo are being compared to Mother Theresa of Calcutta for their boundless generosity. Purr-lease, fan boys, get a grip on yourselves.
P.
...and re-beat the hell out of 007 373 5963
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes: Open, locks, whoever knocks!
People pay extra for classics in a handheld format because they are *portable* - but the going rate for classic games on a console tends to be $20 for 10 or more games on one disc.
If the market for these games is people who haven't played them, they're unlikely to try many of them out for $5 a pop. If the market is those of us who know and love them, we tend to have the ROMs and we've even been playing them legally because somewhere we have the cartridge.
How many people are serious enough about classic games to buy more than a few of these, but not serious enough to have been playing them for the past ten years?
Nintendo can sell a dozen or so of these to very casual gamers on the strength of name recognition or nostalgia, but how far can they expect that to go? Easy, cheap access to a huge library at no risk - free or Netflix style or what have you - could have been a huge selling point for the Wii. It seems here they're giving that up for a comparatively small gain.
Since when are posts with "Nintendo will get my money for sure" moderated as "Score:5, Interesting"?
I need mod points too, so here goes...
I don't like zelda, so I can tell Nokia will get my business for sure!
Ladies and gentlemen, the Sony/PS3 planted-commentator. Watch out! He might be coming to your favorite forum next! Next he'll regale you with stories of all the great PS3 games from EA! You know the ones! With Car, Football Guy, and all their friends and their sequels! Yay for sequels! The original was so good, you KNOW the 2nd/3rd/4th/Nth is gonna be too! Yessir, the tremendous PS3 lineup will blow you away, and he will not stop talking about how he was going to buy something the Xbox360 or Wii but now he's not because 1 more piece of information about them came up, and so he's back to dishing out $600 for a PS3 instead of $200-$400.
I scored a zipfile of all extant US SNES ROMs a while back, and it fits on one CD. Unzipped, it's much larger, but since those ROMs have only a few sizes to choose from, there's frequently a lot of air in them anyway.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I would have much preferred a pricing model where I would be "renting" the download for a limited time. I'm sure there must be many old games I have never tried and would be interested in doing so, but I would not want to pay premium pricing for just "trying" games. Or for example, I might like to give Duck Hunt a whirl once, but I doubt I'd ever want to keep it or play again after that moment of nostalgia.
Hey, that pricing model works for Allofmp3.com...
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
While Nintendo is at plowing through the competition with fair prices and focusing on the "fun" factor instead of the "wow" factor, they should give more incentive to purchase the Wii. How about 10 free classic game downloads with the purchase, or something along those lines?
Maybe the gaming companies will start to realize with the mass amount of sales that occur from the classic games with Wii that people really are more interested in the "fun" factor. I miss the days of being able to pick up a game and play for 20 minutes having accomplished something. Most of the games today take so long just to get started, that isn't possible anymore.
Cheesy Movie Night
And actually, much less manpower went into those old games than newer games. And they certainly cost a lot less to make originally. And they've already recouped their dev costs over a decade ago.
But you go right ahead and spend your money, it doesn't bother me.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
And for the rest of your post... Whatever. I've read impressions from people who've actually had their hands on the stuff at E3, and it's not all roses. It works for some games, not so much for others. And it is not the oh-so-incredibly intuitive input that you silly fanboys think it is.
What you don't get is, I am not juding it. There is far too little to go on at this point. It all still remains to be seen.
But go ahead, pledge your hard earned money to Nintendo so far in advance. That makes perfect sense. Personally, I will wait, probably until I can try it out for myself. I guess that is nonsensical in the reality-distortion field you fanboys seem to live in.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
RARE 4 eva
Mario Bros and Duck hunt. People would lose their phuking mind.
Those who pre-ordered Wind Waker came close to this, and that was less than $30.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Not really, do you realize just how many Zelda games there are now?
:p
NES: Legend of Zelda & The Adventures of Link (also on the GBA, GC)
Game & Watch: Zelda (also in G&W Gallery 4/Advance)
CDI: The Wand of Gamelon
GB: Link's Awakening, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons & The Minish Cap
SNES: A Link To The Past
N64: Ocarina of Time & Majora's Mask (also on GC)
GC: Ocarina of Time & Four Swords Adventures
Even if you toss out the CDI and G&W titles, that's still 10 games, $3-$5 each fpr a $30-$50 collection.
Oh, and there's the hard version of Ocarina of Time (N64 and GC)
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Let me preface this with the fact that I'm excited about Nintendo's Rev.. er, Wii, if only because they're trying to do something different and get non-gamers involved by providing a non-threatening interface for playing games. While I think the Flamebait mod to this post's parent is probably appropriate due to the abrassiveness with which he made his point, I think his point is perfectly valid: That most of us have not gotten our hands on the controls, and don't know how well it's going to work. And even some of those who have still aren't sure. I'm hopeful that any bugs that need to be worked out to make the Wii a success will be worked out, because I want to give this thing a try. It looks to me like Nintendo might have a winner on its hands. That's not to bash Microsoft or Sony (though that's popular these days) who are continuing to take a more conventional approach to gaming. I may yet patronize them if they get software I can get excited about.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Sure, and a lot less manpower went into "Sgt. Pepper" than Brittany's latest romp, but I guarentee that noone's selling that for 50x more.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.