|
Jeffrey posted:Nintendo probably has a better idea of how much demand would be at various price levels, and determined 8 is the best one.
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 08:48 |
|
|
ohnoitschris posted:That's a better solution for the guy wanting to play SMW on his Wii U, just play it on PSP and disconnect it from the TV out when you wanna go portable. I have HyperSpin setup on my HTPC in the living room and it works well, but it is a HUGE pain in the rear end to get GF/Party ready. That and emulators are great for the 8 and 16 bit era, but stuff like N64 is still hugely problematic. An all in one solution would be awesome. It would be a huge selling point that when the xbone and PS4 have little to no previous games available, you could literally play Nintendo's entire back catalog by comparison.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:33
|
|
|
Quest For Glory II posted:You're not going to find many people here who will agree with you that Nintendo knows how to price their stuff. I think Nintendo was on to something with their $1 migration or $.30 VC deals but that was a short lived fart in the wind and probably should've continued with high profile SNES games. I guess their pricing is fine IF the market deems the games are worth that price (I think the Wii's VC was pretty successful due to the high install base) but I think they need to pull an ambassador program-esque move on the WiiU along with sending out weekly deals similar to the character deals the 3DS eShop sees.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:34
|
|
|
Honestly a lot of those games, the SNES ones in particular, are worth 8 dollars or more. Super Mario World has something like 90 levels and is just as good as if not better than the single player versions of NSMB. Not everyone has played it to death either, plenty of people were born after the SNES era.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:36
|
|
|
When the alternative is claiming that halving the price will double sales, I think they might be right on this one. Everyone who wanted to play snes games for the ten years before the Wii came out went and figured out how to emulate them, I don't see people buying them in droves even if they are cheap. They may as well capture the no-emulators/die-hard crowd who are willing to pay more. Nintendo pricing some things poorly doesn't mean they don't think about prices at all, I have a hard time believing they could make twenty year old games have mass-market appeal at any price.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:36
|
|
|
Orgophlax posted:I'm pretty sure it's much more than just the ports, and had actual GC hardware inside to properly emulate it. Since you can still use homebrew in the Wii U's Wii mode, people have found that it is possible to run Gamecube games on the system. These people have also managed to do what Nintendo never bothered with, which is to allow Gamecube and Wii games to run off an external hard drive, use virtual memory cards for the Gamecube, and to allow Wii controllers to be mapped to a Gamecube input. Wii homebrew is like PSP homebrew, in that it improves the system so much and is easy to do. Nintendo can't patch any of the security holes, and it's not like there are any online games you'd be denied access from. That Fucking Sned fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:38
|
|
|
You can't compare the pricing of the eShop to the ease of using emulators, because technically that's illegal. You're literally arguing between paying for something or stealing (unless of course you already own the cartridge; And I'm not trying to make a moral statement here, I use emulators all the time). NES & SNES games are not abandonware.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:48
|
|
|
Cliff Racer posted:Honestly a lot of those games, the SNES ones in particular, are worth 8 dollars or more. Super Mario World has something like 90 levels and is just as good as if not better than the single player versions of NSMB. Not everyone has played it to death either, plenty of people were born after the SNES era. The problem is more the opposite, where they're asking for $5 for games like Balloon Fight. $5 for a game with less content than some free games on Newgrounds is a problem, nostalgia or no. They need a more reasonable sliding scale on game prices as opposed to a blanket "all NES games are $5, regardless of it's a 1983 game or a 1991 game."
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:50
|
|
|
Orgophlax posted:You can't compare the pricing of the eShop to the ease of using emulators, because technically that's illegal. Many, many people have said over the years that digital pricing and DRM is a war of convenience against illegal downloading.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:52
|
|
|
Orgophlax posted:You can't compare the pricing of the eShop to the ease of using emulators, because technically that's illegal. You're literally arguing between paying for something or stealing (unless of course you already own the cartridge; And I'm not trying to make a moral statement here, I use emulators all the time). NES & SNES games are not abandonware. Yes you can compare the pricing, because once price of the legit good rises above a certain point and ease of piracy goes above another point people stop caring about the morality of the situation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:53
|
|
|
Orgophlax posted:You can't compare the pricing of the eShop to the ease of using emulators, because technically that's illegal. You're literally arguing between paying for something or stealing (unless of course you already own the cartridge; And I'm not trying to make a moral statement here, I use emulators all the time). NES & SNES games are not abandonware. You should go back to the early 2000s and tell record companies that they should definitely be able to sell albums online at full retail price with DRM, because piracy is illegal remember. Yes, you have to factor in ease of emulation to the price, even though it's illegal. The effective consequences are basically 0, significantly less than even music piracy. It being illegal means nothing if the law is never enforced. Just look at steam. Selling games for peanuts is basically a license to print money, and Steam is dealing with recently released AAA titles in many cases. I bought dungeons of dredmor the other day, with expansion packs, for $1.50. Nintendo is selling 30 year old games with less content than that for $5 or $8 icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:54
|
|
|
Okay I can tell this is going to devolve into a debate of what is and isn't morally acceptable so I think we should move on from not only the legal/illegal talk but the analogies to other industries.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 16:56
|
|
|
If Nintendo are happy with the profits from the Virtual Console, good for them. However, they still feel out of the impulse buy range, and since if they're never discounted then you'll never impulse buy a ton of them during a sale. None of this matters, since all your VC games will be worthless once the next console comes out, and you'll need to wait for them to be released again and also pay for the privilege of accessing them on your new console. If they had pulled it off half as competently as Sony did with PSOne games, where you buy them once and can have them on your PS3, PSP, and Vita simultaneously. I also doubled my collection when they had a big sale, with games going for less than £2. I could also just use the discs in the PS3 if I had any old games.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 17:07
|
|
|
Since I don't think these got posted, here's the Media Create Sales & Famitsu numbers from last week.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 17:08
|
|
|
That loving Sned posted:None of this matters, since all your VC games will be worthless once the next console comes out, and you'll need to wait for them to be released again and also pay for the privilege of accessing them on your new console. If they had pulled it off half as competently as Sony did with PSOne games, where you buy them once and can have them on your PS3, PSP, and Vita simultaneously. I also doubled my collection when they had a big sale, with games going for less than £2. I could also just use the discs in the PS3 if I had any old games. EDIT: And might actually justify the pricing to more people complaining about it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 17:28
|
|
|
For $8 I would want the best and most accurate emulator ever made, packaged with every revision/variant of that rom plus manual and artwork. What annoys me about virtual console is that 99% are the games that have long been easy to emulate. Bringing out an official emulator years after freeware authors have already perfected better ones is not going to get me to pay again for games I have already bought. There are certainly ways to make me buy Super Mario 64 again. But it would require a little more effort on Nintendos part. I feel like Nintendo just want to milk Virtual Console much as possible, while doing as little work as they can get away with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 17:44
|
|
|
Manchild King posted:For $8 I would want the best and most accurate emulator ever made, packaged with every revision/variant of that rom plus manual and artwork. What annoys me about virtual console is that 99% are the games that have long been easy to emulate. Bringing out an official emulator years after freeware authors have already perfected better ones is not going to get me to pay again for games I have already bought. It's the opposite of what you're saying: They actually spend an obscene amount of time testing each game since their emulation QA is supposedly really arduous, so if anything you're getting The Real Deal when you buy the VC game. That said, they still release them at a snail's pace but if they were doing as little work as they can get away with then you'd probably see the VC flooded with games.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 17:49
|
|
|
Companies do not necessarily know what the right price for theri product is. Especially media companies. Steam has demonstrated that reducing prices aggressively and fast leads to much higher profits. But Nintendo is ignoring this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 17:51
|
|
|
Louisgod posted:It's the opposite of what you're saying: They actually spend an obscene amount of time testing each game since their emulation QA is supposedly really arduous, so if anything you're getting The Real Deal when you buy the VC game. That said, they still release them at a snail's pace but if they were doing as little work as they can get away with then you'd probably see the VC flooded with games. "The real deal" means lovely 50 Hz versions if you are located in a PAL region and terrible picture filtering everywhere: Virtual Console is clearly a low-effort money generator. I don't buy the idea that they spend a huge amount on QA for these games. Fame Douglas fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:04
|
|
|
Manchild King posted:For $8 I would want the best and most accurate emulator ever made, packaged with every revision/variant of that rom plus manual and artwork. What annoys me about virtual console is that 99% are the games that have long been easy to emulate. Bringing out an official emulator years after freeware authors have already perfected better ones is not going to get me to pay again for games I have already bought. That's the kind of effort you get from Good Old Games; a ton of bonuses, no DRM, plus the guarantee that the game will work on modern systems. The PSOne Classics also have a scanned copy of the manual, rather than a generic instruction sheet. Also, for all the effort that Nintendo has supposedly gone through to get the games working 'perfectly', there are still a ton of games like Star Fox and Yoshi's Island that aren't available since they use the Super FX chip. Besides, Nintendo aren't the only ones to tailor the emulator for each game. You can get very accurate emulation using bsnes, since it uses a lot of processing power to accurately emulate the system rather than having speedhacks built in for many popular games. Even the Wii U isn't fast enough to run bsnes, so it's doing exactly what SNES9x and ZSNES have done for over a decade. The Virtual Console is about as minimum effort as you can get, but it still doesn't compare to the Mario 25th Anniversary Collection. It's just a ROM of Super Mario All-Stars on a disc, plus a soundtrack and a tiny book. They didn't even include the version with Super Mario World as well, let alone patch the bug in SMB1 and Lost Levels where breaking blocks pulls you up rather than pushing you back down. Fame Douglas posted:"The real deal" means lovely 50 Hz versions if you are located in a PAL region and terrible picture filtering everywhere: Virtual Console is clearly a low-effort money generator. Oh man, I forgot about these. There were some import games like Dracula X: Rondo of Blood (one of the few games I'd recommend buying for the VC, since the only other place you can play it is on the PSP) which ran at 60 Hz. I remember Super Mario Bros actually ran faster in the PAL version. It's really fun to play like this, but it's hardly what you'd call accurate. That Fucking Sned fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:04
|
|
|
Louisgod posted:It's the opposite of what you're saying: They actually spend an obscene amount of time testing each game since their emulation QA is supposedly really arduous, so if anything you're getting The Real Deal when you buy the VC game. That said, they still release them at a snail's pace but if they were doing as little work as they can get away with then you'd probably see the VC flooded with games. Nintendo aims for not having any obvious bugs or glitches, but the emulators themselves are generally behind the user made ones that a lot of  people have put years of work into.There were noticeable bugs in a lot of VC titles. The colors and the sound of Mario jumping the the SMB games is (was?) noticeably wrong, as is the sound effects in the Mega Drive Sonic titles. N64 titles are a pile of game-specific hacks since none of Nintendo's hardware has anywhere near enough juice to do proper emulation. Even emulating the SNES at the level of something like bSNES requires far more powerful hardware than the Wii or WiiU have. It's also kind of funny that the ROMs inside of the VC files are just versions downloaded from the internet, copier headers and all. That loving Sned posted:Oh man, I forgot about these. There were some import games like Dracula X: Rondo of Blood (one of the few games I'd recommend buying for the VC, since the only other place you can play it is on the PSP) which ran at 60 Hz. They also didn't use the opportunity to put out non-gimped versions of games with custom mappers like the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 with better music, even though there isn't a hardware barrier to doing so anymore. The_Franz fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:08
|
|
|
Astro Nut posted:Since I don't think these got posted, here's the Media Create Sales & Famitsu numbers from last week.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:25
|
|
|
The_Franz posted:Nintendo aims for not having any obvious bugs or glitches, but the emulators themselves are generally behind the user made ones that a lot of What do you mean? That Nintendo references or uses user made emulators for their official VC software? Kinda curious if there's evidence for that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:34
|
|
|
I'm curious to see American numbers, don't 3d Mario games do a lot better here relative to Japan? Those numbers aren't very impressive and are probably worse than every other 3d mario game at this time from release(this was true for Japan during launch week, I don't have numbers for other weeks/regions). I don't think its great news, it's neutral/expected at best. I can't really see how that can generate much discussion.
Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:35
|
|
|
Louisgod posted:What do you mean? That Nintendo references or uses user made emulators for their official VC software? Kinda curious if there's evidence for that. They used code from GBA NES emulators for their NES Classics range, because the author of the emulator found his code in them. The_Franz posted:They also didn't use the opportunity to put out non-gimped versions of games with custom mappers like the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 with better music, even though there isn't a hardware barrier to doing so anymore. I think in that case it would be up to Konami. I love the Japanese version of Castlevania III, so I'd recommend anyone to play the fan translation. Having the Japanese music in Metroid as well as the three save slots would have been possible, especially since they eventually released cartridge versions of Metroid and The Legend of Zelda (the latter being the last official Nintendo release for the Famicom). All it would take would be a change of the title screen, the intro text and the ending text. That Fucking Sned fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:36
|
|
|
Lucy Heartfilia posted:Companies do not necessarily know what the right price for theri product is. Especially media companies. Steam has demonstrated that reducing prices aggressively and fast leads to much higher profits. But Nintendo is ignoring this. I do feel that Nintendo should be dropping their eShop VC prices and anyone who paid extra gets the money back in credit, thus allowing them to buy more games. However, people need to stop looking at Steam as the end all be all. Just because a few companies have been happy to see their games drop to a buck in value doesn't mean Nintendo's properties are smarter priced at a buck a game. Or that Nintendo would make any more money just bundling a bunch of their games and trying to get a single price for it under $15. Right now Nintendo gets a much, much better return for their old games than any other company. Not only that, but lowering eShop prices isn't going to make someone buy a Wii U. They do, however, need far more titles and need to get more companies working on converting eShop games. Convince some companies like Square Enix, Konami and Capcom, maybe with a financial incentive, to convert more of their games. Sega Sammy seems to be loving their 3D conversions on the 3DS of even games you'd never believe would get updated. The more games the better. Nobody is going to skip on a Wii U because Balloon Fight is $5. Of course, Balloon Fight shouldn't cost anyone $5 and the reason it was #1 in VC sales at one point was because everyone was buying it for 10 cents (Last I checked Balloon Fight was #1 and Earthbound at $8 was #2). But that doesn't mean Nintendo would be smart to sell a Link to the Past for a dollar or bundle up a bunch of games that people have proved they will buy at $5-$8 like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario World and Super Metroid and go ahead and bundle them and sell them for a steal. (Also, setting price points based on the console are asinine. Should be priced on a game by game basis.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:39
|
|
|
That loving Sned posted:They used code from GBA NES emulators for their NES Classics range, because the author of the emulator found his code in them. That's loving hilarious. So when you REALLY break it down and assume they're pilfering end user's code, then they really don't have an excuse for not pumping out VC games.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:44
|
|
|
Making $XX profit per game is meaningless if the volume is low though. And I thought Nintendo emulation was regarded as very faithful since even glitches from the original hardware are replicated...
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:45
|
|
|
Louisgod posted:That's loving hilarious. So when you REALLY break it down and assume they're pilfering end user's code, then they really don't have an excuse for not pumping out VC games. To be fair that's why we haven't seen SNES and GBA games on the 3DS in a while. They rushed the code to give Ambassador games and since then have been told to go back to the drawing board on the code.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:47
|
|
|
Louisgod posted:That's loving hilarious. So when you REALLY break it down and assume they're pilfering end user's code, then they really don't have an excuse for not pumping out VC games. I just looked into this, and to be fair, PocketNES is public domain and thus companies distributing it are in the clear. I still can't find any references to Nintendo doing so, only other companies releasing NES games on the gameboy advance.(Please link if you have a source.) It is not nearly so clear that they are doing this on the VC, legal or not. Using already-existing code legally would have made a lot of sense for them but I don't think their corporate culture would allow it. I'm sure if they had used Snes9x there would have been legal action by now, those guys don't play as their license prohibits commercial use. quote:Making $XX profit per game is meaningless if the volume is low though. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:49
|
|
|
Nintendo seems to operate on the old marketing adage that your product will only be perceived as excellent/exceptional if you value it that way, and they keep premium pricing as a way to differentiate Mario World from Angry Birds even if you can get 12 Steam games for $5. I don't agree with it, as a $2/$4/$6 spread or something for NES/SNES/N64 games would be more palatable. I think there is merit to considering things in a vacuum though, especially as pointed out above where the Wii U has a stronger userbase with children who won't have the jaded "this game is 25 years old" attitude as much as (what I presume to be) the 20-somethings in this thread. Balloon Fight sucks but Mario World and Chrono Trigger stand up to modern platformers and RPGs just fine, so I could see an argument for valuing it that way. There are folks out there for which it would be a 'new' game. That said, no excuse for not buying Mario Bros. 3 and having it on my 3DS and Wii U both. Their inept shop system along with the inability to even download Mario Bros. 3 to 2 Wii U's, let alone 2 different systems, has turned me off even bothering with the VC. I haven't really been comfortable getting into their eShop in general, compared to e.g. Sony where the license =/= the console.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 18:57
|
|
|
The_Franz posted:
they did put out SMS games with (toggleable) fm sound from the Japanese version
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 22:29
|
|
|
I ordered a Wii U yesterday.  Turns out the console is pretty attractive if you're getting it at $225. I don't know how easy it is to get a hold of one of those Canadian wal - mart fire sale Basics, but you can get one for $250 on Newegg. The price actually went up since yesterday. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 22:46
|
|
|
Louisgod posted:That's loving hilarious. So when you REALLY break it down and assume they're pilfering end user's code, then they really don't have an excuse for not pumping out VC games. e: The original Wii Virtual Console has 250 more titles available in Japan than in America. Quick comparison: code:The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Dec 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 22:55
|
|
|
Quest For Glory II posted:It's like I've been saying. They're intentionally staggering every release. They've always done this. Wii U Virtual Console has 30 more titles available in Japan than it does in America. How many of those are Japan-only releases? It's possible there are other unknowns that are preventing them from releasing them consistently compared to Japan so I don't want to say they're intentionally staggering them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 27, 2013 23:26
|
|
|
Louisgod posted:How many of those are Japan-only releases? It's possible there are other unknowns that are preventing them from releasing them consistently compared to Japan so I don't want to say they're intentionally staggering them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2013 00:39
|
|
|
Quest For Glory II posted:Even if there were Japan-only releases (there definitely are), there's no disputing the rate of output has been far more substantial from NoJ than NoA, dating all the way back to 2006. If you're being outpaced by one of your own divisions then I don't think you can offer up any legitimate excuses. If they had released all Nintendo-published games and were waiting on licensing/contractural details with third parties, that would be a different story, but that's not the case. I'm just trying to take a step back and figure out other root causes that may affect their inability to consistently release games but I think it'll just come back to "Nintendo sucks at internet" or them not learning from their mistakes. Oh to be a Nintendo fan..
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2013 00:53
|
|
|
Quest For Glory II posted:Even if there were Japan-only releases (there definitely are), there's no disputing the rate of output has been far more substantial from NoJ than NoA, dating all the way back to 2006. If you're being outpaced by one of your own divisions then I don't think you can offer up any legitimate excuses. If they had released all Nintendo-published games and were waiting on licensing/contractural details with third parties, that would be a different story, but that's not the case. This really isn't limited to Nintendo though. The PSN store has a bunch more stuff released in Japan than in the US. The only difference is that the PSN store is fairly robust. The Nintendo store not so much.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2013 00:58
|
|
|
The problem is Nintendo has been doing the same thing since the NES, and the market has changed around it. The writing was on the wall, they manged to catch lightning in a bottle with the Wii, and then cargo cult-ed themselves with the WiiU.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2013 02:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 08:48 |
|
|
Lucy Heartfilia posted:Making $XX profit per game is meaningless if the volume is low though. While their pricing system is messed up, I certainly wouldn't buy more games at a lower price point. I barely play the VC games as it is to be honest. When I looked at my play history on some of them it was just sad and made me not want to buy more games... I think I bought Lost Levels and played it for no more than 15 minutes. That's like 2 bucks a minute.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2013 03:22
|
|