5 ms·

How disappointing. I was hoping Nintendo was taking a lesson from Steam: if you make it stupid easy to pay and play games then people will pay for them. NES Cla

How disappointing. I was hoping Nintendo was taking a lesson from Steam: if you make it stupid easy to pay and play games then people will pay for them. NES Classic was a way to, legally, play a whole bunch of old Nintendo games without resorting to cheap emulators and pirated games that many, many gamers resort to. I'm hoping they're going to re-release this in the near future or something similar that is at a similar price point but let's you play a back catalog of NES, SNES and N64 games. If they had a legal way for me to do that I would pick it up in a heart beat. I guess the alternative is offering all these classic games on the Switch but is the target audience really the same? A $300 handheld versus a $60 dedicated classic TV console? I also wonder if Nintendo could destroy the market of cheap / gimmicky consoles that you can buy for like $50 that include "150 games!". Release something that anyone can afford, hook it up to an e-store and let game devs release cheap games on it. It would be like hooking up the N64 / SNES / NES consoles with online services. I think I rambled a little bit but hopefully it made sense.

davidjnelson 10y ago
I don't see why they don't release a "Mini steam" that allows nes/snes/n64/gameCube/wii games to be purchased and run on a pc via an official/bundled emulator.
emodendroket 10y ago
> I also wonder if Nintendo could destroy the market of cheap / gimmicky consoles that you can buy for like $50 that include "150 games!". Release something that anyone can afford, hook it up to an e-store and let game devs release cheap games on it. It would be like hooking up the N64 / SNES / NES consoles with online services. I mean, really, a million companies have tried it and found it didn't work. You'd have to really bank on Nintendo name recognition to think there is a chance.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > I mean, really, a million companies have tried it and found it didn't work. You'd have to really bank on Nintendo name recognition to think there is a chance. I agree and I think it would really work for Nintendo because they actually have tons of older games people would want whereas many of the attempts in the past offered only indie or no-name games. In my opinion Nintendo is literally the only company that could pull it off.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Lots of companies would a great back catalogue if not for the fact that Nintendo convinced them that emulation is only legal if they do it.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
Nintendo is run by old men who will not do anything different. Trying to get Nintendo to change is a laborious task, requiring everyone to be on board with it.[0] Combine it with their copyright, trademark, and Youtube monetization policies, if it had it's way, Nintendo would love having no one play with their toys. Mr. Sterling has preached about Nintendo many times before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRicuKHmjZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRicuKHmjZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vGe68T6sM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vGe68T6sM [0] http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/21/7867965/conservative-stuffy-old-nintendo-and-its-weird-habit-of-wild http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/21/7867965/conservative-stuffy... > "Nintendo is not only a Japanese company, it is a Kyoto-based company," he said, replying to a question about the difficulty of effecting change at Nintendo. "For people who aren't familiar, Kyoto-based are to Japanese companies as Japanese companies are to U.S. companies. They're very traditional, and very focused on hierarchy and group decision making. Unfortunately, that creates a culture where everyone is an advisor and no one is a decision maker, but almost everyone has veto power."
- bovermyer 10y ago
  While I'm tempted to make a blanket statement that "tradition is the bane of progress," I think in this case it's a little more nuanced. Nintendo needs a competitor. Sony and Microsoft are competitors of each other; Nintendo has not been in that fight for over a decade now. I'd be hard pressed to define exactly what Nintendo is, though, and what kind of competitor it needs.
  - ckozlowski 10y ago
    I'd argue that Nintendo's biggest competitors are the iPhone and Android game markets.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    Nintendo is three companies operating as one brand. It is a hardware design shop. It is a game production studio. It is an international marketing agency.
  - LgWoodenBadger 10y ago

davidjnelson 10y ago

I don't see why they don't release a "Mini steam" that allows nes/snes/n64/gameCube/wii games to be purchased and run on a pc via an official/bundled emulator.

emodendroket 10y ago

> I also wonder if Nintendo could destroy the market of cheap / gimmicky consoles that you can buy for like $50 that include "150 games!". Release something that anyone can afford, hook it up to an e-store and let game devs release cheap games on it. It would be like hooking up the N64 / SNES / NES consoles with online services. I mean, really, a million companies have tried it and found it didn't work. You'd have to really bank on Nintendo name recognition to think there is a chance.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> I mean, really, a million companies have tried it and found it didn't work. You'd have to really bank on Nintendo name recognition to think there is a chance. I agree and I think it would really work for Nintendo because they actually have tons of older games people would want whereas many of the attempts in the past offered only indie or no-name games. In my opinion Nintendo is literally the only company that could pull it off.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Lots of companies would a great back catalogue if not for the fact that Nintendo convinced them that emulation is only legal if they do it.

theandrewbailey 10y ago

Nintendo is run by old men who will not do anything different. Trying to get Nintendo to change is a laborious task, requiring everyone to be on board with it.[0] Combine it with their copyright, trademark, and Youtube monetization policies, if it had it's way, Nintendo would love having no one play with their toys. Mr. Sterling has preached about Nintendo many times before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRicuKHmjZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRicuKHmjZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vGe68T6sM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vGe68T6sM [0] http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/21/7867965/conservative-stuffy-old-nintendo-and-its-weird-habit-of-wild http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/21/7867965/conservative-stuffy... > "Nintendo is not only a Japanese company, it is a Kyoto-based company," he said, replying to a question about the difficulty of effecting change at Nintendo. "For people who aren't familiar, Kyoto-based are to Japanese companies as Japanese companies are to U.S. companies. They're very traditional, and very focused on hierarchy and group decision making. Unfortunately, that creates a culture where everyone is an advisor and no one is a decision maker, but almost everyone has veto power."

bovermyer 10y ago
While I'm tempted to make a blanket statement that "tradition is the bane of progress," I think in this case it's a little more nuanced. Nintendo needs a competitor. Sony and Microsoft are competitors of each other; Nintendo has not been in that fight for over a decade now. I'd be hard pressed to define exactly what Nintendo is, though, and what kind of competitor it needs.
- ckozlowski 10y ago
  I'd argue that Nintendo's biggest competitors are the iPhone and Android game markets.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  Nintendo is three companies operating as one brand. It is a hardware design shop. It is a game production studio. It is an international marketing agency.
- LgWoodenBadger 10y ago