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It really takes away from the good will I might have toward the Nintendo brand. My son wanted the new Zelda game for his wii u. He earned it and we got a downlo

It really takes away from the good will I might have toward the Nintendo brand. My son wanted the new Zelda game for his wii u. He earned it and we got a download code from Amazon. One week later, Grandma bought him a Nintendo Switch. Guess which downloadable game only works on the Wii U? If we want the same game (downloadable too) for the Switch that will be another $60! When I buy a game on my iPhone 6, it works on the new iPhone 7 and it works on my iPad. Apple isn't perfect either but at least they understand that once a consumer "buys" a digital product, they don't like being told they have to buy it again and again.

pjmlp 10y ago
The little facts you are ignoring is that Wii U and Switch aren't the same hardware, nor do they run the same OS.
- mmcconnell1618 10y ago
  Yes, different hardware. Yes, different OS. But when a new downloadable game is available on both platforms and is linked to my Nintendo account I expect I can play it on Nintendo hardware that supports the game without having to buy it twice. Switch even offers the concept of "Active Console" where all your switch downloads can be moved to different hardware.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    It isn't technically the same game, they cannot match 1:1 in features and gaming experience, given the differences between Wii and Switch.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      That's getting really picky. It's almost identical.
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        The game was written twice for different hardware, having different CPU, GPU, memory constraints, controllers and operating systems. Who is supposed to pay the salaries of the development team that wrote the Switch version? So all digital assets are supposed to be pay one take two model?
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        99% of people are only buying one copy or the other copy. Your question is just as valid with the way nintendo chose to do things, and already has an answer. They don't make a meaningful amount of money by requiring some people to buy two copies on the same account. They make a marginal amount of money as a tradeoff for being visibly customer-hostile. > So all digital assets are supposed to be pay one take two model? This is already a buy one take one hundred model, in that you can redownload it as many times as you like on as many sequential devices as you like. The only difference is that the downloads are restricted to one flavor of device.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        So the next time you buy lets say a game on Steam, do you also feel entitled to have the same game for free on Wii U, Switch, PS4, XBox ONE, iOS and Android, regardless of the development costs and amount of people that worked across all those devices?
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        If this is a game where they are traditionally going to sell no more than one copy to me, and it's 99.9% the same across all those platforms, and it wouldn't cost them money to do so because of clunky licensing agreements, then yes I would want my copy of the game to be portable across those devices.
        szatkus 10y ago
        I get one for Linux and Mac OS X for free so it makes sense.
    - shawnz 10y ago
      But the value that the customer can extract from the game is almost the same whether they got the Wii or Switch version. It doesn't make sense to charge double the price for two different licenses when the value gained by being able to use either console is small.
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        Why not, most likely they weren't even written by the same developers, who pays the salaries of the Zelda Switch team, when one adopts take two pay one?
        shawnz 10y ago
        Who pays the salaries of the Zelda Wii team? The publisher, obviously, who also published Zelda for Switch. It's true Nintendo had to spend effort creating a port of Zelda. But they didn't do it for the sake of customers who have both consoles. They did it for the sake of customers who only have a Switch. For customers that have both consoles, the effort of porting the game was already wasted. So they are not losing value by offering those customers a new license, except the minor value gained by being able to use either console and having access to any minor improvements in the newer edition of the game. That is not worth the price of the full game.
- izacus 10y ago
  What does it matter? You bought a licence to play for example Zelda Breath of the Wild. You should be able to play it on any hardware.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    How do you expect to achieve that, given the technical differences?
    - izacus 10y ago
      Did you miss the fact that the game is actually release and runs on all those platforms?!
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        So if you buy a Square Enix game for iOS you feel entitled to have the same game for free on Android?
        jhbadger 10y ago
        That's complicated because the Android and Apple app stores are run by different companies who have no incentive to cooperate. But some software stores do work this way. Steam for example. When you buy a game on Steam you are buying a license to all versions of the software -- you don't have a buy a Windows version, a Mac version, or a Linux version -- you get them all (if they exist). You even get versions that get released later. I've purchased games that only run on Windows and if they later get ported to Mac or Linux they show up in my library.
gdulli 10y ago
There are reasons Nintendo has burned a ton of goodwill to the point where it made the difference in my not buying a Switch. But buying a game on one console generation and having it work on the next has rarely been the norm. Nintendo did decide at one point to pour a lot of separate money into developing the Wii U game for the Switch as well. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make a game work on multiple consoles. And unfortunately when you buy a copy digitally you also lose the ability to sell or trade it, so I never do that. I had the opposite experience with Apple. My iPhone 3 got unacceptably slow when the next major version of the OS came out. There were games/apps I couldn't use anymore unless I wanted to do a factory reset to the older OS. That was after only 2 years. I got off the platform a long time ago and haven't had that problem since.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  You can play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on a Game Boy Advance or SP or Micro, or even a SNES or GameCube with special hardware accessories. You can play Game Boy Advance games on a Nintendo DS or DS Lite. You can play GameCube games on a Wii, and Wii games on a Wii U. There was a specific effort to include hardware from the previous generation in the next, for at least one step of backward compatibility. The GBA had a separate Z80 in addition to the ARM7TDMI to do that. The DS and DS Lite had dual processors and dual cartridge slots, but the DSi ditched the GBA slot. Thus, those were technically capable of running ROM images of GBA games if you found a way to load them and start the ARM7 processor in the correct mode. The 3DS can, of course, play DS and DSi cartridges, having both ARM11 and ARM9 processors. So it is apparent that Nintendo has supported backward compatibility by essentially packaging two hardware systems into one box. That isn't what I would do, but that's what they did. They burned goodwill with me for not writing decent SDKs for their hardware, such that about every game has to do a roll-your-own reach into the hardware. Which doesn't translate to the next generation of hardware. Stupid. Just write a damned SDK, and make the 3rd party dev shops hate you less. I always keep my old cartridges, even though most of my old hardware is no longer capable. It's my proof of license, for when I download the ROMs to play on emulators.

pjmlp 10y ago

The little facts you are ignoring is that Wii U and Switch aren't the same hardware, nor do they run the same OS.

mmcconnell1618 10y ago
Yes, different hardware. Yes, different OS. But when a new downloadable game is available on both platforms and is linked to my Nintendo account I expect I can play it on Nintendo hardware that supports the game without having to buy it twice. Switch even offers the concept of "Active Console" where all your switch downloads can be moved to different hardware.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  It isn't technically the same game, they cannot match 1:1 in features and gaming experience, given the differences between Wii and Switch.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    That's getting really picky. It's almost identical.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      The game was written twice for different hardware, having different CPU, GPU, memory constraints, controllers and operating systems. Who is supposed to pay the salaries of the development team that wrote the Switch version? So all digital assets are supposed to be pay one take two model?
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        99% of people are only buying one copy or the other copy. Your question is just as valid with the way nintendo chose to do things, and already has an answer. They don't make a meaningful amount of money by requiring some people to buy two copies on the same account. They make a marginal amount of money as a tradeoff for being visibly customer-hostile. > So all digital assets are supposed to be pay one take two model? This is already a buy one take one hundred model, in that you can redownload it as many times as you like on as many sequential devices as you like. The only difference is that the downloads are restricted to one flavor of device.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        So the next time you buy lets say a game on Steam, do you also feel entitled to have the same game for free on Wii U, Switch, PS4, XBox ONE, iOS and Android, regardless of the development costs and amount of people that worked across all those devices?
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        If this is a game where they are traditionally going to sell no more than one copy to me, and it's 99.9% the same across all those platforms, and it wouldn't cost them money to do so because of clunky licensing agreements, then yes I would want my copy of the game to be portable across those devices.
        szatkus 10y ago
        I get one for Linux and Mac OS X for free so it makes sense.
  - shawnz 10y ago
    But the value that the customer can extract from the game is almost the same whether they got the Wii or Switch version. It doesn't make sense to charge double the price for two different licenses when the value gained by being able to use either console is small.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Why not, most likely they weren't even written by the same developers, who pays the salaries of the Zelda Switch team, when one adopts take two pay one?
      - shawnz 10y ago
        Who pays the salaries of the Zelda Wii team? The publisher, obviously, who also published Zelda for Switch. It's true Nintendo had to spend effort creating a port of Zelda. But they didn't do it for the sake of customers who have both consoles. They did it for the sake of customers who only have a Switch. For customers that have both consoles, the effort of porting the game was already wasted. So they are not losing value by offering those customers a new license, except the minor value gained by being able to use either console and having access to any minor improvements in the newer edition of the game. That is not worth the price of the full game.
izacus 10y ago
What does it matter? You bought a licence to play for example Zelda Breath of the Wild. You should be able to play it on any hardware.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  How do you expect to achieve that, given the technical differences?
  - izacus 10y ago
    Did you miss the fact that the game is actually release and runs on all those platforms?!
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      So if you buy a Square Enix game for iOS you feel entitled to have the same game for free on Android?
      - jhbadger 10y ago
        That's complicated because the Android and Apple app stores are run by different companies who have no incentive to cooperate. But some software stores do work this way. Steam for example. When you buy a game on Steam you are buying a license to all versions of the software -- you don't have a buy a Windows version, a Mac version, or a Linux version -- you get them all (if they exist). You even get versions that get released later. I've purchased games that only run on Windows and if they later get ported to Mac or Linux they show up in my library.

gdulli 10y ago

There are reasons Nintendo has burned a ton of goodwill to the point where it made the difference in my not buying a Switch. But buying a game on one console generation and having it work on the next has rarely been the norm. Nintendo did decide at one point to pour a lot of separate money into developing the Wii U game for the Switch as well. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make a game work on multiple consoles. And unfortunately when you buy a copy digitally you also lose the ability to sell or trade it, so I never do that. I had the opposite experience with Apple. My iPhone 3 got unacceptably slow when the next major version of the OS came out. There were games/apps I couldn't use anymore unless I wanted to do a factory reset to the older OS. That was after only 2 years. I got off the platform a long time ago and haven't had that problem since.

logfromblammo 10y ago
You can play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on a Game Boy Advance or SP or Micro, or even a SNES or GameCube with special hardware accessories. You can play Game Boy Advance games on a Nintendo DS or DS Lite. You can play GameCube games on a Wii, and Wii games on a Wii U. There was a specific effort to include hardware from the previous generation in the next, for at least one step of backward compatibility. The GBA had a separate Z80 in addition to the ARM7TDMI to do that. The DS and DS Lite had dual processors and dual cartridge slots, but the DSi ditched the GBA slot. Thus, those were technically capable of running ROM images of GBA games if you found a way to load them and start the ARM7 processor in the correct mode. The 3DS can, of course, play DS and DSi cartridges, having both ARM11 and ARM9 processors. So it is apparent that Nintendo has supported backward compatibility by essentially packaging two hardware systems into one box. That isn't what I would do, but that's what they did. They burned goodwill with me for not writing decent SDKs for their hardware, such that about every game has to do a roll-your-own reach into the hardware. Which doesn't translate to the next generation of hardware. Stupid. Just write a damned SDK, and make the 3rd party dev shops hate you less. I always keep my old cartridges, even though most of my old hardware is no longer capable. It's my proof of license, for when I download the ROMs to play on emulators.