Pricing For Retro Games on the Wii 328
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.
Sony... Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft tried, actually, but the number of available retro games is pitiful. Nintendo starts with a gigantic library that they already own.
Microsoft couldn't have done it the way Nintendo plans to. Sony might be able to with PS1 games.
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:3, Interesting)
The cartridge contained a GPU that produced the 3D gfx the poor NES CPU was not capable of producing. Download THAT!
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:More like OpenGL (Score:2)
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this has finally convinced me to buy a Wii, at least pending the price of the system itself. I knew it would be the one console I got, if any, of the new three, but being almost exclusively a PC gamer (and I don't even game too much anymore), I wasn't especially inclined to get any of the set.
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:2)
Even if true I'm sure sony could rework the images to the ones they have the source to and make them much smaller. I'm assuming the fill the entire cd thing is a DRM trick??
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:2)
Not at all, there was no software DRM on the PS1. The concept was barely invented at the time, and no-one had cd burners. The reason the entire CD is filled is because as the space is there, developers might as well use it. Usually with videos and music.
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:3, Informative)
As I understand it, the PS1 disks were stamped with an invalid checksum for the first data block on the disk (0, if I recall correctly). CD burning software helpfully computed the correct checksum and wrote that instead if you burned an ISO to disk. The PS1 looked for that zero checksum, and if it did not find it, assumed that the disk was pirated, and refused to load the disk.
I believe this is
Red Book (Score:2)
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.
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:2)
sony could possiblly try but as another poster has pointed out the fact thier history only goes back as far as the playstation would be a major hinderance (playstation games actually often used a full CD so downloading them would be a PITA).
nintendos only real competitor in this arena is pirate games running on emulators (mostly on PCs but also to a lesser extent on consoles).
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sony... Microsoft... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nintendo offers several different consoles in one. Not sure how many but 6 or more I think. Sony can bundle three, well, four if you count PSP in (but most PSP games are just ports/remakes of PS2 titles anyway).
Have you read the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also if the machine dies (rare, given that my NES is still working 18 years later) do you lose
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:3, Informative)
(Psst, most non-geeks don't have PCs with TV-out configured, or even joysticks or gamepads on their computer. And your own wife is proof people are willing to spend $5 on old games that are only a few hundred kilobytes.)
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:2)
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:2)
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:2)
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:2)
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Demand drives pricing, not ROM file sizes. Legend of Zelda 1 is still valuable to a lot of people, and therefore to Nintendo.
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:3, Insightful)
The size of the data and age are completely irrelevant. If its worth money, theyre going to sell it for what it is worth, perhaps more, perhaps even a lot less.
Re:Have you read the summary? (Score:3, Insightful)
This has got to be the most moronic thing I have heard in quite some time. Here's a clue: goods and services are n
Re:I thought I was a Ninty fanboy until I saw /. m (Score:5, Funny)
Sony would have said, "See! Emulation has caused our lackluster sales! Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of law!"
Re:I thought I was a Ninty fanboy until I saw /. m (Score:4, Funny)
The mental image that conjures is of a dog in a suit and tie howling "SUUUUEEEEEEEEE" at the moon....
Re:I thought I was a Ninty fanboy until I saw /. m (Score:2)
DEmand, not COmmand. (Score:5, Funny)
-theGreater.
$5 is more than fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Kart! (Score:2)
Re:$5 is more than fair (Score:5, Insightful)
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. And you're glad to pay it.
I will be, too. Everybody wins, but especially Nintendo.
Re:$5 is more than fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$5 is more than fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Nintendo has been trying to crack down on ROM distributors for a while now, and failed. People keep playing them and Nintendo never really gains anything from stopping one. To me, this is their response to the ROM dilemma -- distribute the games yourself, from a centralized location, and charge an arguably fair price.
I personally see it as a bit expensive for a digital copy of an old game that, in many cases, is higher than the used market for these titles. I may be surprised, and the purchase be "lifetime" purchases that work on not only the Wii, but future Wiis and future consoles. What would be even nicer is if the Wii could transfer the games to the DS or the "GBA 2." But I'm firmly convinced that Nintendo figured "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and worked out a way to digitally offer these games. They know people aren't going to track down the original cartridges and old hardware just to play them; they want to play them from the comfort of their computer or current system.
Re:$5 is more than fair (Score:4, Interesting)
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. And you're glad to pay it.
Hell, yeah. I think the Wii's probably going to be the only game console that I'll actually buy new.
But what I'd really love to see is the ability to have the Wii run homebrew games under emulation. Consoles these days are so powerful that even the previous generation of console is powerful enough for most purposes. Remember the N64? Pretty sucky processing power by today's standards, but you got some damn good games for it.
By allowing people to upload and run their own game images on the Wii, for, say the SNES or the N64, they'll make the device an absolute dream come true to the (legitimate) emulation crowd. This would gain them huge mindshare with very little effort, while at the same time allowing them to keep control over the Wii running in native mode. It would be very easy to do; you'd need a system for loading in image from a USB device, and that's pretty much it. There would be a minor technical problem in making it so that people can't run copied commercial ROM images --- or they'll undermine their own retro game market --- but that's probably not hard (just rearrange th emulated hardware so the homebrew emulated machine wasn't compatible with the genuine original, for example).
(If they were willing to spend a bit more effort, they could come up with a sandboxed environment that allowed you to use a few more of the Wii's features; this would allow homebrew games similar to, say, the XBox Live range. But of course, that would involve significantly more work.)
Residuals (Score:2)
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.
Re:$5 is more than fair (Score:3, Interesting)
$5 for a 10 or 15 year old game? knothx (Score:2)
Note, however, that it looks like there will be plenty of free 1st party games, which really changes the overall picture, IMO.
Re:$5 is more than fair (Score:3, Informative)
YOu own the games already? Play them on your NES. You want to play them on your Wii? Pay a fee which covers the work on emulating the NES and the quality control that comes from ensuring the games work.
As far as what you get when you purchase a product which contains copyrighted material.. Well you get a physical ma
Re:$5 is more than fair (Score:3, Informative)
UK pricing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:UK pricing (Score:4, Funny)
Better and Better (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Proofreading is out at the moment (Score:3, Insightful)
"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?
Re:Mr. Proofreading is out at the moment (Score:2)
Indeed. I won't take credit for this one, but I once saw somewhere :
Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and...
Sometimes, subtleties in the language can make one hell of a difference.
Sounds Fair (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds Fair (Score:2)
Re:Sounds Fair (Score:2)
Personally, I'd only be willing to pay about $5 for NES and SNES games and might consider paying upwards of $10 for N64 games. Asking for anything more than that is highway robery in my opinion. I'd prefer to see $2 for NES games, $3 for SNES games, and $5 for N64 games. Considering the cost to transmit t
Re:Sounds Fair (Score:2)
Mario Kart 64 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mario Kart 64 (Score:2)
Re:Mario Kart 64 (Score:3, Interesting)
you might be in luck. Nintendo has said that they plan to make some of their old titles online (citing Mario Party as an example). Beyond that, hopefully the GC emulator will trick LAN-enabled games into running online (thinking it's running on a LAN), so that would cover Double Dash(!!) as well as Kirby Air Ride. Plus I guess Phantasy Star Online will run online on the Wii.
But what I really want online is Super Mario All Stars --> Super Mario Bros
Re:Mario Kart 64 (Score:2)
Have you ever checked out the homebrew game Super Mario War for modded Xbox? It's a 4-player Mario battle mode like you describe, with a bunch of game varieties and complete with Quake voices. (Boing, boi
Collections (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Collections (Score:2)
No comparison (Score:2)
Color me impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Color me impressed (Score:2)
DS connectivity (Score:2)
Re:DS connectivity (Score:5, Funny)
You mentioned Miyamoto twice there.
Re:DS connectivity (Score:3, Insightful)
Mistranslated? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder... (Score:2)
I was just about to sel
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Nintendo Rep: "We want to sell your old games for you again, can we?"
Third party guy: "How much is this going to cost me?"
Nintendo Rep: "Nothing, just give us a copy of the ROM code, and a license to sell it. You'll get 3 bucks a download."
Third Party Rep: "Here you go, you can even keep the floppy."
While there is some argument about self competition, and having your library availabe for one of those "Classics" discs which performed like a lead b
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Note that IANAL and IHNIWITA (I have no idea what I'm talking about), but this is just my first speculation
On and On they go (Score:5, Funny)
Re:On and On they go (Score:2)
Re:On and On they go (Score:2)
Oh dammit, now those MIDIs are echoing in my head again...serves me right.
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
With that kind of pricing.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Ya got to do better than that Nintendo.
Re:With that kind of pricing.... (Score:2)
This is just further proof that Nintendo is no longer a console gaming company. They are a hand-held gaming company who also sells a console. They would like for you to buy a Wii to sync with your DS, but what matters most to them is that you buy the DS. That's where all the future growth of the gaming market is anyway. Instead of burni
Re:With that kind of pricing.... (Score:2)
Did you read all the positive posts about this? I think a lot of people give a shit and are excited over a console that can play new and retro games, I know I am. I didn't think people were going to be too thrilled about the prices, but it seems to me that people are eating it up already. I was hoping for $1.50 to $2.50 for some of the older classics, but I think this is going to be highly successful for Nint
editors did it, not me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:editors did it, not me (Score:4, Interesting)
interesting.
You know what this means..... (Score:5, Funny)
Retro pricing... (Score:4, Insightful)
No cartridge/cd
No box
No shipping
No marketting
Hmm... that's a lot of savings right there.
Re:Retro pricing... (Score:2)
No cartridge/cd
No box
No shipping
No marketting
One more: no porting. The Wii retro games run on unified emulators, while I've heard there was a good amoutn of work done to make the retro Gameboy games actually work on a Gameboy.
DS/Wii on the down-low (Score:2)
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 st
Re:DS/Wii on the down-low (Score:2)
Re:DS/Wii on the down-low (Score:2)
For instance, with the tactical RPG, you wouldn't have to wait for someone else's turn to finish before making your commands. You'd do it all on the DS and the game would execute the instructions in either order of entry or user order, depending on how the game works. This would allow each player a greater advantage by not allowing the other players to see
Re:DS/Wii on the down-low (Score:2)
I was focusing more on the Wii/DS connection as a gameplay mechanic than a delivery mechanism, but your points are valid.
I was *so* right (Score:3, Interesting)
This is going to be a gold mine for them.
Did the article get mistranslated? (Score:5, Informative)
EBGames and GameStop (Score:4, Informative)
Re:EBGames and GameStop (Score:2)
Even if Nintendo had never decided to do a Virtual Console, I would guarantee you that some shops would
Ouch (Score:2)
tl;dr (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, this pricing is for... (Score:2, Informative)
$5 - Too much? (Score:2)
This is pretty good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Scarcity and being poor are no longer excuses to download ROM's! The world has been doomed!
No. (Score:2)
If you all would have bought the fucking E-Reader, we would have had more NES games for $4.
Only NEW Virtual Console games (Score:2, Informative)
Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our new DS supply increasing overlords.
Re:what command (Score:2)
Re:Is that white, or honey wheat? (Score:2)
Re:Win the heart of the next wave of gamers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No sir, I don't like it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Losing Interest Fast With The Wii (Score:3, Funny)
Comments from a collector (Score:3, Informative)
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 f
Re:What about Gamecube games? (Score:3, Informative)