A Closer Look at Virtual Console

so does that mean Goldeneye will never come to VC?

so does that mean Goldeneye will never come to VC?

so does that mean Goldeneye will never come to VC?

so does that mean Goldeneye will never come to VC?

Well, given that Microsoft now owns a major stake of Rare, the company that developed GoldenEye, probably not.

How can you claim that it’s all “pure profit”? Do you have any facts to back that up? I imagine that there are a lot of costs that you haven’t considered that goes into a VC release.

Interesting post. And yes, there probably are lots of other costs as well and that’s why it might not even be possible to drop the price on the games. For all we know Nintendo might even be losing money on some of the titles seeing as they’ve priced all NES, SNES, Megadrive, etc. games on a per console price basis. I doubt it but who knows.

It’s up to Nintendo if they take action and if they think people not buying as many VC games is a big enough “problem” to start focusing on rectifying. All I know is that I’m personally not buying as many golden oldies as I used to in the start even though there are quite a few good releases too.

As for the Goldeneye thing, Donkey Kong Country was released and that worked out fine. Although I’m not too sure how that works since doesn’t Nintendo own the Donkey Kong character? Whatever the case, it’s indeed possible Goldeneye will never be seen on the VC. Then again, the 3D-engine games on the N64 look terribly outdated even though the 2D games on the SNES still look amazing, so I don’t really care 3D is a tough field to keep up-to-date when at the same time it’s easy to make a timeless masterpiece in 2D like A Link to the Past (just my personal opinions mind you).

(P.S. As a side note it was very nice, at least in Europe, to get the new VC games in the store always on Friday because then you could buy a game or two with your friends for the weekend and relax with a coke and the Wii after a hard week. Now I’d rather save 8 euros and borrow a movie for 2 euros because we can take turns paying for it, my friends never wanted to give their credit card numbers to be used to download a VC game that I would have on my Wii and they couldn’t take home. So I ended up always paying for it too.)

Interesting post. And yes, there probably are lots of other costs as well and that’s why it might not even be possible to drop the price on the games. For all we know Nintendo might even be losing money on some of the titles seeing as they’ve priced all NES, SNES, Megadrive, etc. games on a per console price basis. I doubt it but who knows.

It’s up to Nintendo if they take action and if they think people not buying as many VC games is a big enough “problem” to start focusing on rectifying. All I know is that I’m personally not buying as many golden oldies as I used to in the start even though there are quite a few good releases too.

As for the Goldeneye thing, Donkey Kong Country was released and that worked out fine. Although I’m not too sure how that works since doesn’t Nintendo own the Donkey Kong character? Whatever the case, it’s indeed possible Goldeneye will never be seen on the VC. Then again, the 3D-engine games on the N64 look terribly outdated even though the 2D games on the SNES still look amazing, so I don’t really care 3D is a tough field to keep up-to-date when at the same time it’s easy to make a timeless masterpiece in 2D like A Link to the Past (just my personal opinions mind you).

(P.S. As a side note it was very nice, at least in Europe, to get the new VC games in the store always on Friday because then you could buy a game or two with your friends for the weekend and relax with a coke and the Wii after a hard week. Now I’d rather save 8 euros and borrow a movie for 2 euros because we can take turns paying for it, my friends never wanted to give their credit card numbers to be used to download a VC game that I would have on my Wii and they couldn’t take home. So I ended up always paying for it too.)

godofgta3 is an assclown. First off videogames were not invented by Sony, Nintendo did resurrect the industry though. Microsoft and Xbox live started the “downloadable” arcade so your precious Sony ripped them off. All of Sony’s “updates” to the PS3 are to keep pace with the 360 and Live. So is Sony constantly ripping off microsoft? according to your backward ass logic they are. Fanboy Dickhead.

@ mgroves and Catarax,

When I say VC games are probably almost all pure profit I mean they are probably pureprofit to someone out there, not necessarily just Nintendo. Think about it. Beyond developing the emulator and testing the game, what other work is there to do? I didn’t mean that all the profit goes strait into Nintnedo’s pocket. Like I said, who knows how much they actaully get. And for all we know, the VC might just be a selling point for the Wii to Nintenedo and nothing more.

Well spoken..

OK, I get that Nintendo is making $$ hand over fist on the VC for games of old, but I never have a problem dropping $5 or $8 or whatever. Who cares? is there anything that costs less than $5 anymore?
Of all the things to spend $$ on, a few bucks on an old game that I couldn’t find anywhere else is not a problem. I think people just like to bitch. Be glad your shit didn’t cost $600!

OK, I get that Nintendo is making $$ hand over fist on the VC for games of old, but I never have a problem dropping $5 or $8 or whatever. Who cares? is there anything that costs less than $5 anymore?
Of all the things to spend $$ on, a few bucks on an old game that I couldn’t find anywhere else is not a problem. I think people just like to bitch. Be glad your shit didn’t cost $600!

It would be hard to mobilize everyone, but why not just boycott the VC till it forces them to take another look at the pricing?!?!? In a situation like this the people have the power.

I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’m not sure that changing prices is actually going to benefit the consumer in the long run.
Let’s consider some more things. The pricing for VC titles is different from country to country and it wouldn’t be foolish to say that Nintendo has made more than 22 million for the said 3.3 million titles when funds have been converted and exchanged. Also consider that Nintendo is allowing access to their servers with the cost of maintenance and bandwidth built into the games price (Hence the seperate price points for games). As we all know an NES game is relatively small compared to a 64 title. We also have to consider royalties across platforms both to publishers and developers. Of course we know nothing of all these figures and Nintendo isn’t ever likely to reveal all these details (I’ve also looked and asked around). Further try and find one of these original titles on Ebay or god forbid your local used game retailer and you’ll see that the VC is a bargain ($30 for a used DKC in my neighborhood). 2-3 titles a month truly is a drop in the hat for the average gamer compared to new $50 titles at retail. With all these these things taking a chunk out of each titles profits the games are a bargain. Let’s complain about the emulation flaws or compromised features for once.

Let’s try to understand some other factors that may explain why the VC is seeing less life. Believe it or not Nintendo could be satisfying us with their releases. Not necessarily VC titles but in terms of actual Wii titles. For example, ever since I picked up Super Paper Mario, I haven’t really played anything else. I actually would love to pick up Punch Out!, Galaga, Mystic Ninja, and Gradius III but there’s no point if I’m already preoccupying my gaming needs. They aren’t going anywhere so I have all the time in the world to pick them up. On top of that, with the VC titles already out I have maybe 2 that I’m still in the process of beating. Not everyone is merely collecting these titles, they are selecting them and playing/replaying them as if they were new games. I’m sure Nintendo knew this was a possibility, another reason to slowly leak them and only rarely put a killer game out there. I bet we will see a huge boost in summer when people have more time to shuffle games around.

I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’m not sure that changing prices is actually going to benefit the consumer in the long run.
Let’s consider some more things. The pricing for VC titles is different from country to country and it wouldn’t be foolish to say that Nintendo has made more than 22 million for the said 3.3 million titles when funds have been converted and exchanged. Also consider that Nintendo is allowing access to their servers with the cost of maintenance and bandwidth built into the games price (Hence the seperate price points for games). As we all know an NES game is relatively small compared to a 64 title. We also have to consider royalties across platforms both to publishers and developers. Of course we know nothing of all these figures and Nintendo isn’t ever likely to reveal all these details (I’ve also looked and asked around). Further try and find one of these original titles on Ebay or god forbid your local used game retailer and you’ll see that the VC is a bargain ($30 for a used DKC in my neighborhood). 2-3 titles a month truly is a drop in the hat for the average gamer compared to new $50 titles at retail. With all these these things taking a chunk out of each titles profits the games are a bargain. Let’s complain about the emulation flaws or compromised features for once.

Let’s try to understand some other factors that may explain why the VC is seeing less life. Believe it or not Nintendo could be satisfying us with their releases. Not necessarily VC titles but in terms of actual Wii titles. For example, ever since I picked up Super Paper Mario, I haven’t really played anything else. I actually would love to pick up Punch Out!, Galaga, Mystic Ninja, and Gradius III but there’s no point if I’m already preoccupying my gaming needs. They aren’t going anywhere so I have all the time in the world to pick them up. On top of that, with the VC titles already out I have maybe 2 that I’m still in the process of beating. Not everyone is merely collecting these titles, they are selecting them and playing/replaying them as if they were new games. I’m sure Nintendo knew this was a possibility, another reason to slowly leak them and only rarely put a killer game out there. I bet we will see a huge boost in summer when people have more time to shuffle games around.

I dont realy care about the old games. the few i do care about are the ones i get get, most of them are RARE’s. banjo, golden eye , cronker, etc. but hey are idiot and they wanted to make a lot less money on the 360. if RARE was for nintendo they would be making loads on VC games and loads of $ on thier new games.

and how long can nintendo send out GOOD or even desent games. i will hope they “and third parties” soon start making games for the virtual councel, or even demos of games.

The Rare games are actually rare to find in the Wii Shop (pun intended). \:D/

// Roth

Well my suggestion for a solution in the last post by shanoboy still stands, I think they should reward those who buy more with reduced prices. Obviously I have no idea how they really make their money and what costs are risen from the process of getting the old NES game onto the VC, but in the entertainment business they usually tend to price software (not hardware) quite high. Anyone here play World of Warcraft? I do and it costs 13 euros a month. I’m pretty sure 2/3 of that goes into the developer’s own pocket The VC games might have a price gap just as big.

And btw, I’m not whining about the prices, just adding to a relevant subject. I’m just interested to see what Nintendo will do, if anything. And if they don’t drop their prices I just won’t be bothered buying that many more games for the VC because I don’t really need them for that price. 5 euros for one NES game isn’t a lot but when you buy more than one game and they’re mostly for the SNES and cost 8 euros it’s not cheap anymore.

Activision made Goldeneye lol hahahahaha b.s.