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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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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!
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?
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!
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
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.
Screw that, most of the 22 year olds I know are going to buy a Wii! It's cheap enough that it's not a major buy-- cheaper than a weekend road trip. That makes the Wii petty cash, instead of a major investment..
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 $9!
They make a big deal about the Gameboy retro games being more expensive than Wii's retro games will be. That makes sense, though, as the actual COST of a Wii retro game is a lot less.
No cartridge/cd
No box
No shipping
No marketting
Hmm... that's a lot of savings right there.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
My brother and I were having a discussion about this the other. He was convinced that Nintendo wouldn't be able to sell their old games at more than a couple bucks a piece. I thought 5-10 seemed reasonable. My brother, 18, didn't understand that there are millions of mid-20's people who grew up on these games and have plenty of disposable income. As I have already purchased Zelda III and original Metroid for my game boy advance, I knew better.
This is going to be a gold mine for them.
According to a few posts on the arsforums there and a few webtranslations the article should say new games developed just for the virtual console will be between 500 and 1000 yen, not the classic nes/snes/n64 games that will be available on the virtual console as well. There was another article a few days back, explaining that 3 people should be able to put a game together in a few weeks and sell it on the console for around 5$, 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!
You mentioned Miyamoto twice there.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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.
Every geek has some sort of website, programming or computer project. Here's mine: www.youtasteit.com . What's yours?
"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 thought the Wii could play GameCube games without the need to download them. According to the collective wisdom of everyone who's read a Nintendo press release, "The front of the console features a self-loading media drive which is illuminated by a blue light and will accept 12 cm Wii game discs, 8 cm GameCube game discs and, with an additional purchase, DVDs."
For more information, click here.
but did anyone listen to the press confrence? the 500-1000yen was for NEW vc games, not the emulated stuff.
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 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!
Even if it is, at least it'll be wireless, so you won't /also/ have to buy a DS-Wii controller cable for each one, unlike the first game.
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.
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
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 $8.99 is a deal on such games.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
My point being that age really doesn't matter with this console. I'm sure the kids will love this thing, but I'm 23 and I want one. My best friend is 24 and he wants one. My mother is in her mid-forties and she wants one. About the only people that I know dislike the Wii are a few teenagers that dislike the name and brand and die-hard M$ shills. There is absolutely no reason to really hate this console and it will most likely be the real winner of this generation simply by innovation. Thank the gods that the age of over-bearing computational power is over.
I have nothing to say.
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?
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The Wii plays GameCube discs directly. You can even plug your GC controllers into the console.
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